Switzerland accounts for 60% of India’s gold imports

MUMBAI: As much as three-fifths of India’s total gold imports last year came from Switzerland, reflecting a significant jump in just a couple of years.

India imported 471.9 tonnes of gold from Switzerland in 2014, according to precious metals consultancy GFMS Thomson Reuters that quoted a country-by-country breakdown of gold imports and exports released by the Alpine country for the first time since 1980. This represents 61% of India’s total gold imports of 769 tonnes last year as per World Gold Council data.

Industry sources say that the quantum of gold imports from Switzerland has increased to around 60% in 2013 and 2014 from an average 45%-50% in the decade through 2012.

Rajesh Mehta, chairman at Indian gold jewellery exporter Rajesh Exports, said “better systems” Switzerland may have helped increase gold imports from there vis-à-vis other major suppliers such as South Africa and Australia.

According to GFMS Thomson Reuters, monthly gold inflows into India from Switzerland increased significantly in the last four months of the year, from anywhere between 20.9 tonnes to 44.3 tonnes during January-August to up to 77 tonnes in November “as fabricators started to build up towards the festive season.”

India was the second-largest importer of gold from Switzerland in 2014, after Greater China (Hong Kong and Mainland China) that imported 596.6 tonnes of Swiss gold.

According to World Gold Council, gold imports into India last year were down 7% from 2013 figures when the country imported 825 tonnes of the yellow metal.