Friday, 23 March 2012

The Biggest Gold Market in the world: China

By Jack Wogan


Steady but surely, China has managed to become one of the largest gold consumer countries in the world. Besides investing heavily in gold, China also consumes a lot of precious metals and also base metals. Due to this massive investment, the country is likely to replace India as the largest gold consumer in the entire world. The main reason behind this is the fact that the incomes are surging which in turn drives the demand for jewellery and investments. There are lots of ways that we can invest in gold: starting with the 1kg gold bars, gold coins, gold mining shares, gold ETFs, etc.

Back in 2011, the demand for precious metal in China reached 20% to 769,8 tons, while in India the consumption of gold fell by 7% to 933,4 tons of gold. Reports show that in 2012 China is likely to emerge as the largest gold market in the world. The reality is that China is in an economic growth and this means that there is a great consumption of everything from soya beans to copper. Because so many incomes have increased, there are plenty of people that are willing to invest in gold.

It is clear by now that the yellow metal has been doing great for the last 11 year and this is one of the most important reasons why the rate of investment and the jewellery demand is so high. By simply taking a look at the quarterly reports published in the last months we can say that China was the top gold consumer. The demand in this period of time reached 190,9 tons, compared with India's 173 tons of gold. In China the jewellery consumption rose constantly last year and in the second half of 2011 and the country became the biggest gold jewellery consumer in the world.

Due to the fact that inflation has become such an important issue, more and more people are looking to invest in gold. Another important reason why the demand for the glittering metal has risen so much last year is because the government had clamped down property investment.

It is clear that the pool of savings is trying to attract more investors not only for making a profit but also for retaining its value. China has managed to keep its benchmark lending rate steady for some years now (it fluctuates around 4%). Something else that has put China in the front row for gold consumer leader is the fact that the country has engaged in heavy imports of gold from Hong Kong.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment