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Continuing gold sale trends set last year, China's gold imports from Hong Kong surged more than sixfold year-on-year in the first quarter of 2012, adding weight to earlier comments by the World Gold Council (WGC) that China is poised to take over india in 2012 as the world's largest gold market. in 2011, sales to China increased 20% year-on-year to 769.8 tonnes, according to the Gold Demand Trends report, published by the WGC.
''lt is likely that China will emerge as the largest gold markt in the world for the first time in 2012,'' said Marcus Grubb, WGC's managing director for investment, as quoted in the Guardian.
lmports from Hong Kong were 135.53 tonnes be-tween January and March, a massive increase from 19.73 tonnes a year earlier, according to data from the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong government. According to Bloomberg, shipments in March rose 59% from February. |
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Left to right : i) Jewellery by Garavelli. Image courtesy of World Gold Council
ii) Jewellery by Aurafin. Image courtesy of World Gold Council
iii) Jewellery by Mark Patterson. Image courtesy of World Gold Council
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India is currently the largest market for gold, although its demand fell 7% in 2011 to 933.4 tonnes. the majority of these purchases, more than 500 tonnes, were for gold jewellery. The fastest growth in China, meanwhile, is for investment, which rose 69% in 2011 to 258.9 tonnes.
India is currently the largest market for gold, although its demand fell 7% in 2011 to 933.4 tonnes.The majority of these purchasese, more than 500 tonnes, were for gold jewellery. The fastest growth in China, meanwhile, is for investment, which rose 69% in 2011 to 258.9 tonnes.
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''We're looking at another solid year Chinese be-mand based on these early numbers,'' said Nick Trevethan,senior commodities strategist Australia & New Zealand Banking Group ltd. ''While it's largely related to price negetive real interest rates should keep demand strong-negative real interest rates should keep demand strong.''
Gold prices have slumped this year after reaching more than US$1,900an ounce in September. At the time of print, gold was trading at less than US$1,565. However, banks remain confident in gold for 2012. Goldman Sachs maintained its six-month and 12-month fore-casts for gold at US$1,840 per troy-ounce and US$1,940 per troy-ounce, respectively.
''We see risks that gold will likely continue to trade with a lack of conviction and remain well correlated to the broad-based US dollar and the rest of the commodity complex, which under our FX economists' view of a weaker US dollar still suggests higher gold prices,'' the bank said. ''U.S. economic and employment data now has disappointed for several weeks, European election results point to further stress in the euro area, while anecdotal data suggests that physical gold demand remains resilient'' |
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iv) Jewellery by Diana Heimann. Image courtesy of World Gold Council |
Germany's largest bank was even more confident, saying that gold would reach US$2,100 per ounce in the fourth quarter of 2012. According to the bank, central banks are proving to be a powerful source of gold demand, purchasing much more than in previous years. ''We expect that despite near-term pressures in the market due to heightened EU risks (and thus the modest outperformance of the USD vs gold), we believe that further selling could remain subdued,'' the bank said.
Even more bullish was economist David Rosenberg, who pre-dicted gold prices would reach US$3,000. He sees real short-term interest rates as being one of the key determinants of gold price. The longer they stay negative, ''the longer the bull market in gold is going to be.''
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China to overtake Indid as world's largest as world's largest gold consuer, says WGC 
