New book ‘102 Things to Do with a Hole in the Ground‘ spotlights global reclamation projects
Stories of reinvented coal mining regions, regenerated communities and rebuilt ecosystems are told in a new book published this month.
Renewed fears about Chinese equity markets after the worst points loss in Shanghai for eight years gave the gold price a lift on Monday.
But the metal continues to trade close to five-year lows after closing at $1,093, up only $7.40 from Friday’s close.
The wild swing on the Shanghai and Senzhen exchanges has wiped more than $3 trillion off the value of listed stocks in less than a month.
The stocks panic and worries about the true extent of China’s economic slowdown so far hasn’t pushed Chinese investors into the safe haven of gold.
Bargain hunters in the world’s second largest gold market are also still on the sidelines despite the availability of cheap metal.
After a strong May, in June China’s net imports of gold via Hong Kong fell by 48% month on month and 8% year on year to the lowest level since August last year according to HK customs data.
Swiss Federal Customs Administration also show a sharp contraction for June although imports have more than trebled from last year’s unusually small shipments.
Year to date shipments are more than 30 tonnes below 2014 levels, the year which saw China lose the top gold importer spot to India.
Source: FT
3 Comments
Franklinguven
What about figures on the direct imports of gold now happening into Shanghai and Beijing that do not go through Hong Kong anymore?
Deliveries of Gold are up 30% YOY on Shanghai Gold Exchange.
ExPat
Published numbers, to the extent that they are reliable, so far indicate that Chinese investors are not moving money from the stock market to gold. China does not release any gold trade data, so the Hong Kong numbers are used an indicator of Chinese demand, however I’ve heard that more imports are not coming in through the Shanghai gold exchange. So reading Chinese imports has become even more difficult.
Keep in mind that the rout of the SSE really did not get going until June 18, more than halfway through the month. And it is not clear how much money Chinese investors really had to move from stocks to other investments – Chinese stock market investors cut their borrowing by a third after the wave of margin calls. It sounds like they have been moving some money into government bonds, including $1B in Russian bonds, and also Japanese bonds.
geeee
This commentary is just an outright lie as it covers gold trough Hong Kong only which is but a partial picture for China imports of gold. The real data shows China imports higher year over year. When will the media tell a straight truthful story, the headline for this story is disgusting, no wonder no one has any respect anymore for media outlets like this. I’m shocked that Mining Dotcom would publish this crap.