Gold price’s that slumped to near a nine-month low is drawing jewellery shoppers in Asia to hunt for bargains, says media reports.
After a year of demand being in the doldrums, retailers are buying more precious metal to cater to buyers. Gold buyers in India and Malaysia are stocking up for weddings and investment. Retail investors in South Korea are amassing bullion in huge quantities, while Chinese demand drove sales higher over the Lunar New Year.
Gold price in the international market dropped 0.9 per cent to $1,729.60 an ounce on 22 Mar 2021, leading to a demand for physical gold. Earlier it fell below $1,700 to the lowest since June, prompting more buying from consumers who were deterred by prices reaching a record of $2,075.47 in August.
Jewellers in India see the momentum lasting until the auspicious gold-buying day of Akshaya Tritiya in May. Jewellers expect sales to double in the January-March period from a year earlier.
In China, gold jewellery consumption is set to grow by 28% in 2021. Jewellery sales at big urban retailers more than doubled during the Lunar New Year holiday compared with last year. This pushed the local market to trading at a premium since mid-January, which hasn’t happened since February 2020.
Bullion dealers say premiums on kilobars have also been increasing in Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand since February.
Aruna Gaitonde, Editor in Chief of the Asian Bureau, Rough&Polished
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