Gold Reserves and Demand

As per World Gold Council statistics, the world official gold holdings as of September 2010 stands as follows.

#	Country	Gold Reserves (Tonnes)
1	USA	8,133.5
2	Germany	3,402.5
3	Italy	2,451.8
4	France	2,435.4
5	China	1,054.1
6	Switzerland	1,040.1
7	Japan	765.2
8	Russia	726.0
9	Netherlands	612.5
10	India	557.7

Please click here to read the entire report on world official gold holdings as of September 2010, released by the World Gold Council.

Please note that the report shows only the gold reserves owned by the governments of these countries and doesn't include the demand for gold jewellery from the people of these countries.

When it comes to the demand for gold for jewellery, India still remains the largest jewellery market in the world, accounting for more than 25% of global gold jewellery demand, which is followed by China. To give an indicative figure for the demand for gold for jewellery, in Q2 2010,

Global gold jewellery demand: 408.7 tonnes
Gold jewellery demand in India: 123.0 tonnes
Gold jewellery demand in China: 75.4 tonnes

Seems the yellow metal's dream run will continue for a long time.

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The Rising Gold

The markets seem to hold a Midas’ touch these days. Don’t get me wrong as I am not talking about the volatile stock markets, but about all those markets/financial products associated with the effervescent precious metal, Gold!

The yellow metal, which is an obsession for Indian’s, costs more than 15,000 rupees a 10 gram block. This is close to 100% more than what it was worth a year and a half back. This rise in Gold prices is reflecting in various financial instruments associated with it.

Gold backed Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) are rising sharply in the last few days (9% in 7 days). So is the case with Gold Futures, which according to ET, is on a record breaking spree.

This story of glory seems to continue for some more time as the Gold demand in India is in tact as it increased by a whopping 84% during October ~ December 2008. Also, investing in Gold would be a reliable alternative for many an investor, as the global economic crisis and it’s after effects continue to loom large over Indian markets. These would be the reasons why experts say that despite the rise, one can still invest in gold.