Gold coins will not be available this Dhanteras and Diwali season beginning October last week. This is because jewellers have decided not to sell coins, and instead divert them to jewellery-making to meet the shortage arising from
the government's curbs on imports of the yellow metal.
Coin sales reach their peak during the Diwali season every year as corporates, businessmen and people buy coins for gifting purpose. Banks and organized players have already
stopped selling coins.
"We won't be selling coins," says Bhaskar Bhat, Managing Director at Titan Company which owns the jewellery brand, Tanishq.
It is to be seen how gold retail chains are going to address the demand for gold coins.
"This is a
temporary reaction to the current environment," says P.R.Somasundaram, Managing Director at World Gold Council India. "The demand for gold is quite robust because of good monsoon, and the festival demand is expected to be met by the industry."
According to him, the October-December is traditionally a very good quarter, and the supply issues have been addressed with the government issuing clarification on bullion imports. Last year, the demand during the December quarter was 260 tonnes. The government has laid down a 80:20 rule - meaning
for every import, a fifth of it has to be exported after value addition.
The World Gold Council on Tuesday released the research report that it had commissioned, The direct economic impact of gold, prepared by PwC. The 54-page study looks at the entire value chain from mining to refining to fabrication to retail consumption.
The gold industry contributed more than $210 billion to the world's economy in 2012 - roughly equivalent to the GDP of the Republic of Ireland, Czech Republic or Beijing, the study reveals.
As for India, $30 billion was the gross value addition in 2012 through jewellery and coins, says Somasundaram. "This does not include the value addition through recycling of gold."
India recycled 113 tonnes of gold last year.
Strong measures from the government to curb the demand, Somasundaram adds, will only hurt the value addition and the economic activity in India. The report, however, has not analysed value additions through activities such as collateral lending in India.
In 2012, global gold supply reached 4,453 tonnes, and about two thirds of new gold supply each year comes from mining with the remaining one third coming from the recycling of gold.
The report notes that India was the top fabricator and consumer of gold jewellery in 2012, accounting for nearly one third of global fabrication and consumer demand. India and China together account for more than half of global gold jewellery fabrication and consumption demand.
Although China fabricates and consumes less gold than India, its total gross value addition exceeds that of India because it adds more value per ounce of gold, the report says.
Special 
