WGC: Retail Gold Demand Continued to Remain Tepid in India

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The India gold market report published by the World Gold Council (WGC) states that retail demand remained tepid during July this year. On the contrary, the country witnessed healthy wholesale demand.

The domestic gold price recorded marginal surge by 1.2%, ending the month at INR 51,301 per ten grams. It must be noted that the international gold prices had declined by 3.5% during the month to $1,753 per ounce.

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The healthy wholesale demand led to narrowing of local discount in the market. The discount narrowed to $1-2 per ounce by the end of the month, as compared with the discount of $23-24 per ounce during the beginning of the month. The local market switched to discount of $9-10 per ounce during the initial week of August, mainly due to declining wholesale demand from manufacturers.

The WGC noted that official gold imports by the country registered a decline by 41% too total 42.5 tonnes in July. The Indian gold ETFs witnessed net outflow of 0.9 tonnes on profit booking by investors in the wake of sharp correction in domestic gold prices and expectations of further weakness.

The country’s central bank added 13.4 tonnes of gold during the month, lifting its total gold holdings to 783.1 tonnes.