BAMAKO, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Industrial gold production inMali, one of Africa's top producers of the precious metal, isexpected to beat the 60.5 tonnes forecast for 2021, a minesministry official said on Tuesday.Gold production from the 13 mines operated by major minersincluding Barrick Gold , B2Gold , ResoluteMining and AngloGold Ashanti stood at 47.1tonnes by the end of September, the ministry said."At the end of September industrial gold production stood at47.1 tonnes, 2.6 tonnes more than the initial forecast forSeptember, which was 44.5 tonnes," said Mamadou Sidibe, head ofthe mines ministry's audit and statistics department."With this trend we are sure that the forecast for the yearwill be reached or even exceeded," Sidibe said, adding thatstrong production was usually expected during the last quarterof the year.Mali's industrial gold production in 2020 totalled 65.2tonnes. (Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo
Writing by Bate FelixEditing by David Goodman)