The China Gold Association released statistical data yesterday stating that China's gold production reached a new historical high last year, ranking first in the world for seven consecutive years. Meanwhile, the "relentless decline" in gold prices last year also drove China's gold consumption to exceed 1,000 tons for the first time.
According to a report by China News Service, data from the China Gold Association shows that China's gold consumption reached 1,176.40 tons last year, a year-on-year increase of 41.36%. Of this, gold used for gold bars was 375.73 tons, up 56.57% year-on-year; gold used for jewelry was 716.50 tons, up 42.52% year-on-year; while gold used for coins, industrial purposes, and other uses saw varying degrees of decline. Starting from April last year, gold prices experienced several steep, "cliff-like" drops. The price of gold in mainland China fell from over 400 RMB (over 80 SGD) per gram at the beginning of 2013 to the "200s" range by the 2014 Spring Festival.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal Chinese website, middle-aged investors in China, particularly middle-aged female consumers known as "Dama," took advantage of the low gold prices last year to purchase gold. These "Chinese Dama" pushed gold prices up by 4% in a single week last August, but they were unable to reverse the overall downward trend of gold globally. As market concerns grew regarding the Federal Reserve tapering its stimulus measures and with global inflation remaining tepid, investors chose to sell gold last year.
According to reports, data from the investment service company BullionVault shows that by the end of 2013, gold prices had fallen by 28% to 1,205.99 USD (1,532 SGD) per ounce, hitting the lowest level since September 2010. The World Gold Council will release global gold consumption data for 2013 this week. Analysts expect that due to India's strict import regulations on gold, China will replace India this year as the world's largest gold consumer. India's gold consumption the year before last reached 864.2 tons. At the same time, the China Gold Association also stated that China set a historical record with a gold production of 428.16 tons last year, an increase of 6.2% over 2012. For the past seven years, China has been the world's largest gold producer.
According to a report by China News Network, the top ten key gold-producing provinces (regions) are Shandong, Henan, Jiangxi, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, Hunan, Gansu, Fujian, Hubei, and Xinjiang. These ten provinces (regions) account for 82.94% of the total national gold production. Reuters also cited data from last month indicating that the amount of gold imported by mainland China from Hong Kong last year doubled compared to the previous year, reaching a new high of 1,158.162 tons. Data from the People's Bank of China shows that as of the end of 2013, China's total gold reserves stood at 1,054 tons, remaining unchanged from five years ago and not increasing to 2,710 tons as some had previously expected.