<P> In 1991, following the lead of the International Development Association, Mali relaxed the enforcement of mining codes which led to greater foreign investment in the mining industry . From 1994 to 2007, national and foreign companies were granted around 150 operating licences along with more than 25 certificates for exploitation and more than 200 research permits . Gold mining in Mali has increased dramatically, with more than 50 tonnes in 2007 from less than half a tonne produced annually at the end of the 1980s . Mining revenue totaled some 300 billion CFA francs in 2007 more than a thirty times increase from the 1995 total national mining revenue of less than 10 billion CFA . Government revenues from mining contracts, less than 1% of the state income in 1989 were almost 18% in 2007 . </P> <P> Gold accounted for some 80% of mining activity in the mid-2000s, while there remain considerable proven reserves of other minerals not currently exploited . Gold has become Mali's third - largest export, after cotton--historically the basis of Mali's export industry--and livestock . The emergence of gold as Mali's leading export product since 1999 has helped mitigate some of the negative impacts caused by fluctuations in world cotton markets and loss of trade from the Ivorian Civil War to the south . Large private investments in gold mining include Anglogold - Ashanti ($250 million) in Sadiola and Yatela, and Randgold Resources ($140 million) in Morila--both multinational South African companies located respectively in the north - western and southern parts of the country . </P> <P> While great incomes are produced, most staff employed in the mining industries are from outside Mali, and residents in the areas of intensive mining complain of little benefit from the industry . Populations complain of displacement for the construction of mines: at Sadiola Gold Mine, 43 villages have lost some land to the mine there, while in Fourou, near the large Syama goldmines, 121 villages saw some displacement . </P> <P> In addition, the continued exploitation of unregulated small scale mining, often by child labourers, supplies a large international gold market in Bamako which feeds into international production . Recent criticism has surfaced around the working conditions, pay, and the widespread use of child labour in these small gold mines (as reported recently in the U.S. Department of Labor's List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor), and the method with which middlemen, in regional centers like Sikasso and Kayes, purchase and transport gold . Gold collected in the towns is sold on--with almost no regulation or oversight--to larger merchant houses in Bamako or Conakry, and eventually to smelters in Europe . Ecological factors, especially pollution of water by mine tailings, is a major source of concern . </P>

Which of the following was the major source of wealth in the empire of mali