China’s Gold Market İn March Dips Due To The COVID-19 Resurgence

In March the Shanghai Gold Price Benchmark in RMB and the LBMA Gold Price AM in USD climbed by 1.5% and 1.1% respectively, ending Q1 with the strongest quarterly performances since Q2 2020.

Chinese gold ETF holdings grew by 2.4t valued $150mn during the month, reaching 61.8t to $3.9bn. But the March inflows were unable to prevent a net Q1 outflow of 13.3t to $0.8bn.

Gold withdrawals from the Shanghai Gold Exchange saw a sizable y-o-y fall in March amid lockdown measures in major cities to contain the COVID-19 resurgence, leading to the second weakest Q1 for wholesale gold demand in the past decade.

Gold imports in February were lower m-o-m amid seasonally weaker wholesale gold demand in China and a relatively lower Shanghai-London gold price spread.