Can Gold Attract Chinese Buyers Beyond its Investment Appeal in 2025?
Wed Mar 12 2025
In the first two months of 2025, during the Chinese New Year festive season, gold bars, coins and ETFs saw an uptick in demand driven by several factors – such as gold’s global stability as an investment asset & China’s sluggish economic growth coupled with the Yuan’s volatility. While gold jewellery demand also showed some improvement, it remained weak when measured in tonnage.
During the lunar new year period, jewellery stores anticipated higher consumer interest as compared to previous months, according to the World Gold Council.
About 125 tonnes of gold was withdrawn from the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) in January 2025. This represents a 3% rise month-on-month but well below the same period in the previous years, highlighting the soaring gold price’s negative impact on the tonnage of gold jewellery demand.
“Elevated gold prices pushed consumers more towards lightweight pieces. While tonnage demand for gold jewellery may have stayed tepid, consumer spending on gold jewellery was robust,” Roland Wang, China CEO, World Gold Council said.
So far, Chinese consumer behaviour towards gold in 2025 mirrors 2024 trends. Up until November 2024, gold reigned as the best-performing investment asset in China, with its RMB (Yuan) value appreciating nearly 28%. Gold thus drew more investors and less jewellery buyers last year. Gold bar and coin investment in the first three quarters of 2024 reached its highest level in 11 years. In contrast, demand for gold jewellery dropped to its lowest level in 14 years.
However, last year total gold consumption in China fell 10% year-on-year. As weak demand was anticipated due to slow economic growth, China imported 14% less gold in 2024 as compared to 2025, and 16% below the pre-Covid five-year average.
China’s gold consumption 2025 Q2 forecasts
To uplift China’s economic condition in 2025, the Chinese government has made consumer spending its topmost priority.
In a parliamentary session in Beijing, earlier this month, Chinese Premier Li Qiang promised to vigorously boost domestic consumption as the country set a 5% growth target.
This year, China has raised its budget deficit to 5.66 trillion Yuan ($780 billion) or around 4% of gross domestic product, the highest level in almost 3 decades, according to various news agency reports.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Bloomberg’s median forecast China’s GDP to grow at 4.5% in 2025, year-on-year; economic growth in China, according to the World Gold Council, will be the biggest driver for gold investments and consumption of jewellery.
In the upcoming months, although the World Gold Council forecasts strong investment demand for gold in tonnage terms, “it will be weak compared to previous years,” warns Wang.
In China, weddings play a notable role in gold sales. However, this year may see the lowest number of marriages take place in China in 10 years and that could negatively affect gold jewellery consumption. “Mass-appeal jewellery products with lower labour charges but finer craftsmanship will continue to attract consumers,” says Wang.
As an investment asset, bar and coin sales could continue gaining momentum and any gold price adjustment could be considered a good opportunity to enter for investors in 2025.
China Bets Big on Gold in 2025
As China looks to navigate through its slow economic growth, it is exploring increased investments in assets that offer stable yields.
A new programme launched earlier in February by the National Financial Regulatory Administration of China allows the country’s insurers to invest 1% of their assets in bullion. Ten insurance firms in China including China Life Insurance Co. will be able to invest their assets in precious metals like physical gold. China is the world’s second largest insurance market, and this pilot project could unlock up to $27.4 billion in investment!
Since the inception of Shanghai Gold Exchange in 2002, gold (in Chinese Yuan) has seen an annualised return of 9.8%. According to the World Gold Council, gold’s well-established role as a hedge against risk, positions it as an effective tool for insurance funds to navigate global uncertainties.
Source: https://gjepc.org/