As gold touches new high, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is urging public against investing in gold. The deputy governor of RBI, on the sidelines of an award function, said “there is a crying need to raise the awareness among the people especially the poor that investment in gold is not productive, and a poor man can never make money by investing in gold.” This was the second time that the deputy governor has spoken out against investing in gold.
Indians have interest for gold and it has resulted in jewellers offering savings schemes even the poor can buy limited quantity of gold through a gold account. The success of very large NBFC in providing gold loans has made banks confident to get into the business. India is the world's largest consumer of gold and is estimated to have imported close to a 1000 tonnes in 2011. RBI had purchased 200 tonnes of gold from the IMF in 2009 to provide liquidity to the multilateral institution.
The imports have fallen following the increase in customs duty in the 2012 budget. Gold imports touched $60.6 billion last fiscal, which also pulled down trade balance, widening the current account deficit which hit a 30-year high of 4.3%. The rise in prices and the weakening rupee has helped the imports to stay high. Regardless of the import fall, domestic gold prices continue to surge with the yellow metal being seen as a strong hedge against inflation.
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