And as for demand, is that as weak as some analysts would have you believe, particularly with respect to China? There is again a media swell suggesting Chinese gold demand is crashing as the Chinese economy falters, but this is just not borne out by gold flows through the Shanghai Gold Exchange. This hit an enormous 65 tonnes at a normally weak time of year in the latest reported week ended August 14th. As we have stated before, whether these are an accurate representation of Chinese demand or not, they are certainly a huge indicator of Chinese sentiment towards the yellow metal.
These views on Chinese demand, and also on India’s too, have just been borne out by Swiss refiner Valcambi’s CEO, Michael Mesaric speaking at a high-powered gold conference in Goa on Friday. He estimated demand in India and China would be enhanced this year by the earlier lower prices with 2015 Chinese demand seen as being more than 1,000 tonnes and India’s getting close at 950 tonnes. These compare with the World Gold Council figures (somewhat disputed as being far lower than reality by the gold bulls) for 2014 demand of 974 tonnes and 811 tonnes respectively. And with the Swiss refiners being the biggest source of imported gold for both nations, they have perhaps a better grasp of the true situation in terms of trends than even the bank analysts.
This post was published at Mineweb
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