China gold buying "stuns" tradersChina gold buying "stuns" precious metals traders - demand unbelievable
The volume ofChinese citizens' purchasing of gold running up to the start of theChinese New Year has completely stunned traders leading to big pricepremiums in Shanghai.
Author: Lawrence Williams
Consider the following paragraph from London's highly respected Financial Times - a publication not usually prone to hyperbole: Preciousmetals traders in London and Hong Kong said on Wednesday they werestunned by the strength of Chinese buying in the past month. "The demandis unbelievable. The size of the orders is enormous," said one seniorbanker, who estimated that China had imported about 200 tonnes in threemonths.
Now China has already reported a five-fold increase in gold importsover the first 10 months of 2010 and if the estimate quoted above iscorrect the country may well be seen to have imported upwards of 320tonnes in the full year which brings the total to within a hairsbreadthof Indian imports - and India has for many years been the world'slargest importer of gold by a considerable margin. If Chinese goldpurchasing momentum continues at anywhere near close to current levelsit will soar past India as the world's largest importer of the yellowmetal this year.
The FT quotes UBS gold strategist Edel Tully as commenting that notonly is China on the fast track to replace India as the largest physicalconsumer of gold but that now the Chinese New Year holiday, whichstarts tomorrow, has already become significantly more important thanIndia's Diwali Festival in gold buying volume terms.
What is perhaps being ignored by many investors who have beenliquidating gold holdings in the U.S. in particular where there is agrowing, but perhaps unwise, perception that the stock market is on aroll again, is the burgeoning, and seemingly accelerating, strength inAsian demand. As fast as investors are selling their gold ETFs in theU.S., the Chinese and other Asian nations are snapping up the physicalgold which thus becomes available again.
Indeed in some parts of Asia, gold has been selling at a strongpremium over and above the London price - as much as a $20 an ouncepremium is being reported as applying recently in Shanghai, although nowthe Chinese New Year holiday itself gets under way the demand strengthis expected to slip a little. Nevertheless Chinese observers expectbuying to surge again once the holiday is over.
With China having been the world's largest producer of gold for thepast several years now, with output rising each year, if we add this tothe perceived import levels China will have consumed close on 650 tonnesof gold in 2010 - around 25% of estimated global mined production onits own - a remarkable statistic. China, India and other southeastAsian countries together will thus be absorbing around half of globalnewly mined gold output and for the moment this demand is not justrising, but rising fast, with the Chinese, Indian and several otherAsian nations' growth rates rising at close to 10% per annum or more.Those analysts out there who continually harp on about gold'sfundamentals not supporting current price levels, let alone furtherrises, seem to have totally missed this point
Posted:Thursday,03 Feb 2011https://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page33?oid=119820&sn=Detail