Import of gold declines in Jan. THE KERALA health minister said they had started the process to identify people who may have come in contact the two virusinfected patients.
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Continuing the downward trend, gold imports in January fell 48 per cent to the lowest level in four months.
In January, the country imported 36.26 tonnes of gold against 69.51 tonnes in the same month last year. In value terms, January imports totalled
$1.58 billion, down from last year’s $2.31 billion, reports quoting government officials said.
Gold imports have been coming down since July when the prices started moving up. In the domestic market, the rising prices touched record high levels. Both demand and imports remained subdued during the second half of the year.
However, in November when prices fell from the all-time high levels, the trade used this opportunity to replenish their stocks, which saw imports going up by 78 per cent to
71 tonnes against 40 tonnes in the same month last year. However, once prices started rebounding, imports once again came down. Other than November, the entire second half witnessed shrinkage of imports. For the year 2019, imports were down by 12 per cent of 831 tonnes against 944 tonnes in 2018.
As industry expert said that the actual imports could be even lower as the government has been collating data of the refined gold and the dore imported into the country. If the gold refined out of the dore is considered, the imports could be even lower.
Increased supply of the metal into the market in the form of recycled gold also kept imports subdued. Recycling of old gold went up 37 per cent in 2019 to 119.5 tonnes against 87 tonnes in 2018.
“Recycling volumes went up above 100 tonnes after five to six years. The gold price rise was one of main reasons behind this phenomenon. However, some of the BIS-certified refineries have started making recycling more organised by improving marketing and collection,” said Somasundaram P.R., Managing Director, India, World Gold Council.
WGC finds that this could be beginning of a trend and the government needs to incentivise recycling in order to pull out the huge stocks of gold lying idle with households and ease the import burden.