China shows its continued support to the precious yellow metal by significantly investments in the bullion-backed ETFs. This is happening right now due to the increasing number of middle class citizens in the country and preference of first-world countries like Germany to gold bullion investments.
Germany, the country with the second largest gold holdings, set a precedent last year by showing just how important gold assets are in the struggle to keep a stable economy. Germany has made it clear that it has no plans to sell its gold until 2020, and it’s even retracted some of its precious metals from Paris and New York. This move was done in order to ensure the quick liquidation of their assests in case of an emergency.
Private investors and emerging countries like China seem to have taken cues from this event, and they’ve sinced jumped on the bandwagon of investing in gold. BullionVault has plenty of information on buying gold in Germany, as well as some news about the strategies implemented by countries to utilize their gold reserves to their full potential.
Earlier this year, it was reported that China has overtaken India as the world’s largest gold consumer. China’s hunger for hoarding gold doesn’t look like it will stop any time soon. In a report by the World Gold Council, China’s annual demand for gold could rise up to 1,350 tons by 2017 — a 25% increase of the country’s recorded gold consumption in 2013.
“There is a huge ground swell of people becoming wealthier, that have more money to spend on jewellery and more savings to invest,” said Alistair Hewitt, intelligence marketing manager for the World Gold Council. “For many people, gold is the preferred form for savings amid volatile stock markets, overvalued property and low interest rates being offered by banks.”
According to the chart by Yahoo! Finance, gold ETFs have increased a little more than 10% this year. Experts advise that now is a good time to invest in gold-backed ETFs.