One of these days, Bloomberg published a report on world gold demand. According to this report, China’s annual demand is growing by 20% putting this country into the second place among the largest consumers of gold. In India, gold demand is rising by 11% annually (this figure includes both gems and gold, but the latter accounts for 80% of the domestic market).
During 9 months of 2007, India consumed 515 tons of jewelry gold, China 221 tons and the U.S.A. 165 tons.
The authors of the report believe that jewelry gold demand is spurred by increased personal income of the population in both China and India.
In Russia, jewelry gold consumption reached 45 tons during 9 months of the current year.
All the above-mentioned figures refer to chemically pure gold (jewellery makers are using gold alloys containing from 30% to 75% of gold).
The ill-proportioned ratio between the “household” gold consumption and the Gross National Product (in USD) in India, China, the U.S.A. and Russia is explained by different motivation of personal purchases. In India, gold items are not so much jewelry adornments, as they are conceived in the Eurocentrist (Judaeo-Christian) perception, and serve as religious attributes of multiple Hindu religions. China preserves a deep-rooted tradition of Confucian attitude towards gold as being a collective property of the “big family”. Consumption of jewelry items in the European sense (prevailing also in the U.S.A. and Russia) is a way to express one’s individual personality in a certain social and economic context.
Vladimir Teslenko
