Turkey gold imports still riding very high — Lawrie Williams

By our reckoning, Turkey has imported some 174 tonnes of gold in the first half of the current year. This reflects a degree of political turmoil both before and after the April referendum, which gave President Erdogan sweeping additional powers, but also Erdogan’s advice late last year that citizens should buy gold or Turkish lira rather than dollars in converting foreign currency or as a hedge against future uncertainties. It looks as though his advice has been well heeded as far as gold is concerned.
This year’s imports to date have already exceeded the 106 tonnes imported in full year 2016, which in turn was more than double the amount imported in 2015. Thus this year’s figures represent an enormous increase on prior years’ figures and probably puts Turkey currently in place as the world’s third largest net importer of gold, after China and India.
With Chinese gold demand remaining reasonably strong and Indian demand hugely up in the first half of the year ahead of the new GST imposition, gold flows from the West to the Middle East and South and East Asia have been very strong in the first half of the year and have probably accounted for just about all of the world’s new mined gold, which puts physical metal in short supply in the west.

This post was published at Sharps Pixley