India to import around 350-400 tonnes of gold in Q2; Asia demand to hit record: WGC

by indiatimes.com

Asian gold demand from this April to June will reach a quarterly record as bullion consumers in the region take possession of supply freed up by selling from exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the World Gold Council (WGC) said on Wednesday.
Gold prices fell to their lowest in more than two years at $1,321.35 an ounce in mid-April on signs of economic improvement in main markets and fears that central banks around the world could start to curtail their bullion-friendly policy measures.

The move scared investors in the West, triggering a sharp liquidation of speculative and ETF positions. But lower prices also prompted strong physical demand from price-sensitive countries such as India and China, which together account for more than 50 percent of consumer demand for bullion.

Gold Demand In One Chart: Physical vs ETF

 by Tyler Durden 
 

 















China's demand for gold jumped 20% to 294 tonnes in the first quarter of 2013, while global gold demand overall slid 13% thanks to the dramatic rotation of demand from paper to physical. Chinese demand in gold bars and coins grew to 109.5 tonnes - more than double the five-year quarterly average of 43.8 tonnes. Central banks added 109.2 tonnes of gold to their reserves in Q1 2013, the ninth consecutive quarter of net purchases. But it was the Q1 ETF outflows of 176.9 tonnes, equating to a 7% decline in total gold ETF holdings that obscured the strong rise in investment for gold bars and coins at the retail level. In the face of the huge 'paper' gold ETF outflows, 'physical' gold demand surged to its highest in 18 months...

Russia Flips Petrodollar On Its Head By Exporting Crude, Buying Record Gold

by Tyler Durden
 
China has been a very active purchaser of gold for its reserves in the last few years, as we extensively covered here and here, but another nation has taken over the 'biggest buyer' role (for the same reasons as China).


Central banks around the world have printed money to escape the global financial crisis, and as Bloomberg reports, IMF data shows Russia added 570 metric tons in the past decade. Putin's fears that "the U.S. is endangering the global economy by abusing its dollar monopoly," are clearly being taken seriously as the world's largest oil producer turns black gold into hard assets. A lawmaker in Putin's party noted, "the more gold a country has, the more sovereignty it will have if there’s a cataclysm with the dollar, the euro, the pound or any other reserve currency."
Putin’s gold strategy fits in with his resource nationalism, statist agenda, as Bloomberg notes when Russia defaulted in 1998 it took 28 barrels of oil to buy one ounce of gold, was 11.5 barrels when Putin came to power and when in 2005 it had fallen to 6.5 barrels (less than half what it is now), he went all in, telling the central bank to buy.