CAPE TOWN (miningweekly.com) - South African gold major Gold Fields was targeting a production rate of four-million ounces a year by April at a time of rising revenue in both dollar and particularly local-currency terms and falling costs, Gold Fields CEO Nick Holland said on Tuesday.

Holland told the Mining Indaba in Cape Town that all commodities had come down in price except gold, the price of which was continuing to rise.

"The fundamentals are very compelling," Holland said.

Mine supply had grown only 2% and not 5% as had been predicted.

Central banks were not selling all their gold and there were record sales of gold exchange-traded funds.

"If one takes the view that the dollar will weaken, gold will keep on rising," Holland said

He challenged his gold-mining peers to look at Gold Fields' proprietary notional capital expenditure concept, which emphasised the creation of free cash flow and the ending of a decade of value destruction by gold-mining companies.

"One of the key mantra's of Gold Fields is to have free cash flow. We believe the industry can't keep on printing money by just issuing more paper," he said.

"If not here to make money for shareholders, I question our presence," he said, adding that Gold Fields would be resisting merger-and-acquisition "heroics" and had opted instead to "sweat" its existing assets.

Near-mine exploration was allowing the company to find additional gold at an average exploration cost of only $20/oz.

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