India overtakes China as world’s top gold consumer

Beijing (Jan 30)  Chinese gold demand slid by more than a third last year to a four-year low of 866 tonnes.

India overtook China as the world’s biggest gold consumer in 2014 as global physical demand fell, an industry report showed on Thursday, forecasting that prices that have declined for the last two years would bottom out this year.

Chinese gold demand slid by more than a third last year to a four-year low of 866 tonnes, while the country’s scrap gold supply rose 21 percent to an unprecedented 182 tonnes, the report by GFMS analysts at Thomson Reuters showed.

Slower economic growth and a crackdown on corruption helped knock Chinese jewellery demand to 608 tonnes, 33 percent below the previous year’s “extraordinary” levels, it said. Physical bar demand fell 53 percent to 171 tonnes, a five-year low.

“We do expect an increase in Chinese demand this year. However, without a dramatic course of events we would not expect it to come close to matching the level in 2013,” GFMS analyst Ross Strachan said.

Source: Mineweb