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Demand for gold from UK jewellers is increasing
Published Wednesday 18th May 2016If you have old, unwanted or broken gold jewellery to sell, now is a great time to make some money on it because demand is currently on the up.
New figures from the World Gold Council show that the UK jewellery industry used one per cent more gold in the first three months of this year than it did in the same period in 2015.
The increased British demand for gold comes at a time when prices paid to people selling their scrap gold are at the strongest they’ve been for years. Such is the demand for the precious metal from everyone from investors to jewellers and technology companies, that prices rose by a glittering 17 per cent in the first quarter of the year; the biggest rise in a three month period for almost 30 years.
The majority of scrap gold – broken and unwanted jewellery – that is bought in Britain goes back into creating new gold jewellery. Figures from the Birmingham Assay Office show the number of pieces being hallmarked after the usual busy run-up to Christmas, when gold jewellery always sells well, experienced another jump towards the end of the first quarter of this year.
Britain, however, is bucking the international trend. Although we’re buying more gold jewellery here in the UK, demand has fallen in the world’s biggest gold jewellery markets of China and India.
The World Gold Council statistics show that worldwide, there was actually a 19 per cent dip in demand for gold jewellery in the first three months of the year. The main reason for this was a strike by Indian jewellers, who were protesting about taxes being imposed on their work. There were also concerns in China about the country’s economic growth, which meant people weren’t spending their cash.
But overall, the picture for gold is a sparkling one. Worldwide, 1,290 tonnes of the precious metal changed hands in the first three months of the year, a rise of 21 per cent on the first quarter of 2015.
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