China could be holding more gold – report

China’s possessions of the precious yellow metal gold may be more than what its official data had revealed.

On Tuesday, the China Gold Association (CGA) disclosed the world’s second-largest economy, ditto the biggest gold-producing nation and greatest importer of the precious metal as well, produced a record 360.96 tonnes of gold in 2011, a 5.89 per cent over a year ago figures. The latest statistics earned China the label as the world’s top gold producer for a fifth consecutive year, according to the association.

However, the Chinese have never been really transparent on totally declaring exact numbers of such acquisitions, as with the case of its total gold reserves holdings. China, although it periodically issues bits and pieces of information on it, had never really admitted how much gold it has.

This week’s data announcement, though not necessarily tampered, maybe just the tip of the iceberg, www.mineweb.com reported, quoting Jeff Nichols, specialist precious metals analyst of American Precious Metals Advisors and Rosland Capital.

“Actual gold mine output could easily be close to 400 tonnes and possibly more,” Nichols said.

China’s gold production and consumption may be considerably higher over the CGA disclosure, Mr Nichols noted, on account that the CGA only includes in its tally production numbers submitted by its members, eliminating in the process gold production contributions by non-members. Non-members would include many small, unofficial mining operations that mostly operate in the “underground economy,” Mr Nichols said.

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Posted by admin on Feb 6 2012. Filed under Gold predictions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry