-- Posted Thursday, 6 December 2012 | | Disqus

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced that it expected Gold consumption in the country would be running at more than double national gold production by the end of 2015, more than double Chinese gold consumption forecast for 2012.

According to the MIIT statement, domestic demand is set to surpass 1000 tons by the end of 2015. It said this would ‘widen the fundamental market shortage’ and noted that the shortage of supply will persist in the coming few years as domestic gold supply ‘might only reach 450 tons by that time.’

Official gold policy

The ministry promised: ‘In order to strengthen the gold industry the government will increase gold mine investment, speed up industry consolidation and international cooperation. It also said it would ‘develop gold trading platforms and investment variety (presumably meaning ETFs).

‘With regard to acceleration of industry consolidation, the government aims to lower the number of gold producers in the country to 600 companies by the end of 2015 from the current 700. And, the top 10 gold producers could be responsible for 260 tons of total output, up from 100 tons, by the end of 2015.’

ArabianMoney readers will not be too surprised to hear that China now has big plans for gold. Only recently we published the thoughts of ‘Mr. Gold’ Jim Sinclair who forecasts $3,500 an ounce gold and higher is coming on the back of Chinese demand (click here).

China is looking to diversify its assets away from the US dollar and to protect its national savings against devaluation and inflation by investing in one currency that no central bank can print. Ironically the nation faces quite a challenge in achieving this because it cannot raise gold output anything like as fast as it would like.

Huge buyers

The impact of Chinese demand for an additional 500 tons of gold per annum on the gold market will be enormous. This is more than all the gold bought by the global central banks last year.

Mr. Sinclair knows what he is talking about in predicting very much higher gold prices from the current stalemate in the gold market. This is about long-term global macro trends that have little to do with day-to-day market trading.

The big picture is still hugely gold positive and now the Chinese are jumping on the bandwagon. Investors do you need more than that?

-- Posted Thursday, 6 December 2012 | Digg This Article

About Peter Cooper:
Oxford University educated financial journalist Peter Cooper found himself made redundant by Emap plc in London in the mid-1990s and decided to rebuild his career in Dubai as launch editor of the pioneering magazine Gulf Business. He returned briefly to London in 1999 to complete his first book, a history of the Bovis construction group.

Then in 2000 he went back to Dubai to become an Internet entrepreneur, just as the dot-com market crashed. But he stumbled across the opportunity to become a partner in www.ameinfo.com, which later became the Middle East's leading English language business news website.

Over the course of the next seven years he had a ringside seat as editor-in-chief writing about the remarkable transformation of Dubai into a global business and financial hub city. At the same time www.ameinfo.com prospered and was sold in 2006 to Emap plc for $27 million, completing the career circle back to where it began a decade earlier.

He remains a lively commentator and columnist as a freelance journalist based in Dubai and travels extensively each summer with his wife Svetlana. His financial blog www.arabianmoney.net is attracting increasing attention with its focus on investment in gold and silver as a means of prospering during a time of great consumer price inflation and asset price deflation.

Order my book online from this link

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