Singapore mulls physical gold trading at Southeast Asia’s biggest bourse - Wealth Managers

And India’s imports to rebound this year, billionaire jeweler says

China isn’t the only gold powerhouse in Asia. The biggest up-and-comer is recent years has been Singapore, which has taken a number of steps to bolster its position as a global precious-metals hub.

It repealed taxes on gold and silver and is home to a so-called “freeport” that warehouses the treasures of the ultra-rich. Numerous major investment banks have flocked there to build storage vaults for metals.

Now, according to Bloomberg, “Singapore Gold Exchange Ltd., Southeast Asia’s biggest bourse operator, is considering starting physical gold trading” in a plan that “would include bullion deliveries into and out of the Southeast Asian country.”

The news agency speculated that “SGX may join peers in South Korea and China in offering physical bullion trading as Asian demand increases, drawing supplies out of Europe.”

South Korea just took that step when its Korea Exchange Inc., which had only traded in bullion futures, began offering physical gold to help the government is Seoul “curb as much as $3 billion of black-market transactions.”

Black-market gold also is problem in the word’s No. 2 largest gold-consuming nation, India. Its draconian restrictions on its gold trade, aimed at reducing its trade deficit, have been under fire since their imposition. Now, with the deficit down and smuggling on the rise, speculation is growing that the curbs will be reversed soon.

That’s the viewpoint of billionaire jeweler T.S. Kalyanaraman, who thinks that “the pickup in shipments from midyear will help overseas purchases over 2014 match the 825 metric tons imported in 2013,” Bloomberg reported.

“Imports will be slow till June, and then the trend will be the opposite and we will land with the same figures as the previous year,” said his son Ramesh Kalyanaraman.

The aforementioned news from Singapore, South Korea, and India illustrates the ongoing robust demand for gold in Asia. With that part of the world boasting dynamic economies compared with the West, as well as an increasing number of millionaires, the gold trade will be increasingly dominated by Eastern nations who are absolutely ravenous for the yellow metal.

More information can be found online at http://www.goldbullionadvisors.com