Demand for Golden Jewelry is on the Rise
The gold market in Germany is thriving as many Germans are increasingly buying more jewelry made of gold, analysts say.
"There were three or four gold traders ten years ago, and there are now more than 100 of them," gold expert Martin Siegel told Sputnik Germany.
According to the analyst, even with the fluctuating demand, the market tends to be very strong. There are now stores in every major city where people can buy gold.
Gold Investments Stay Behind
Jochen Stanzl, the chief market analyst for Germany and Austria at CMC Markets' offices in Frankfurt am Main, said that the situation on the gold market is not as thrilling when it comes to investments.
"At the moment we have much larger groups of buyers," Stanzl said. "But these are just jewelry buyers. These are not the customers who buy gold in the form of coins or bars, in order to make an investment," the analyst added.
"Traditionally, Germany has always been one of the biggest holders of physical gold — as far as state gold is concerned. We certainly have quite a high affinity for this. The whole thing comes together with strong safety aspirations Germans have," the analyst noted.
At the same time, Klinkmüller also stressed that there is a sharp decline in German demand for gold as an investment, by contrast to jewelry, which is in great demand as a "luxury product."
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"Basically, Germany is currently doing relatively well in terms of income. On the other hand, one must also say that the demographic situation in Germany has changed so that we certainly have many ethnic groups that attach great importance to gold jewelry. So, it is not surprising that the demand for it is high in Germany."
International Gold Market
According to the 2017 third-quarter report of the World Gold Council released a few days ago, the international gold market is currently experiencing a relative slowdown; with low demand from investors in the US and falling jewelry sales in such important gold-buying countries as India, the demand for gold has reached its lowest level in eight years and fell by as much as 12 percent compared to 2017.
At the same time, the demand for physical gold in Germany rose by 45 percent to about 21 tons in the third quarter of 2017.
According to Martin Siegel, the managing director of the fund company Stabilitas, Germany ranks between five and 10 among the countries with the highest gold demand.
The main gold buyers also include China, India and Russia.
