Greenland has found itself in the global spotlight in recent months, largely due to provocative remarks by US President Donald Trump about annexing the Danish-ruled Arctic territory. Far less
noticed, however, is a quieter but telling development: Greenland has begun exporting gold to Switzerland, reinforcing the Alpine nation’s role as the world’s leading hub for gold refining and trade.
According to provisional figures from the Swiss Federal Customs Administration, cited by the SonntagsZeitung newspaper, Swiss gold imports from Greenland rose from nothing to CHF18 million (around $22.5 million) over the past year. While modest in absolute terms, the jump marks the opening of a new supply channel into Switzerland’s vast precious-metals industry.
The reasons behind the sudden appearance of Greenlandic gold in Swiss statistics are largely practical. Greenland has no gold refinery of its own, meaning that any metal extracted on the island must be shipped abroad for processing.
“Since Greenland does not have its own refinery, this gold arrives in Switzerland,” Christoph Wild, president of the Swiss Association of Precious Metal Producers and Dealers, explained to the newspaper.
The trade has been confirmed by the mining company operating Greenland’s only gold mine, which resumed production at the end of 2024 after a period of inactivity. Once extracted, the raw gold is transported to Switzerland, where it is refined to meet international standards.
According to SonntagsZeitung, around 200 kilograms of Greenlandic gold are expected to be delivered in 2025. The metal is processed at the Metalor refinery in the canton of Neuchâtel, one of Switzerland’s historic centres of precious-metal refining, where it is transformed into high-purity bars or other finished products.
Despite the symbolic importance of a new source country, Greenland’s contribution remains a drop in the ocean compared with Switzerland’s overall gold trade. In 2025 alone, Switzerland exported more than 550 tonnes of gold to the United States, with a total value exceeding CHF46 billion.
Still, the arrival of Greenlandic gold underlines Switzerland’s enduring pull as the preferred destination for refining precious metals from around the world — whether from established producers or newly emerging suppliers at the edge of the Arctic. Photo by Stevebidmead, Wikimedia commons.