The World Gold Council (WGC) would soon submit a blueprint to the government on spot exchanges, its managing director for India operations said at an ASSOCHAM event held in New Delhi. Somasundaram PR, managing director-India, WGC noted at the ASSOCHAM International Gold Summit stated that a WGC led steering committee which has got all trade associations, key international banks and bullion banks, has been working on the spot exchange blueprint for last six-seven months. It just now finalised what the spot exchange should be and the council will be releasing that both to the government, policymakers and others.
Highlighting that demand for gold is likely to remain subdued in the current calendar year, Somasundarm said that while the demand for gold in the first half was seven per cent down compared to last year, the WGC expects it to pick up in the second half. However, it will still be another very subdued year for demand and he expects the demand to be 700-800 tonnes.
There is no specific catalyst to drive the demand up, while international gold price has come down by 8-10%, Indian price has gone up by 13-14% and GST (Goods and Services Tax) is also causing a lot of transition, according to him. However, reforms like GST and demonetisation have actually led to gold buying becoming a lot more organised, more so as grey market is also becoming weak, thus it is a good time for gold to become mainstream because of demand remaining subdued.
He said that considering gold demand is influenced more by increase in income; the WGC expects that demand for gold will slowly go back, by 2020 to 800-900 tonnes. Somasundaram also said that government should refrain from imposing any restriction on gold as market is very subdued right now. The CAD is purely because of oil and the rupee depreciation is because equity market money is going out, it has nothing to do with people buying gold.
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