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| Updated: Nov14, 2004 |
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Nov 14, 2004 Dubai, a large coastal city in the United Arab Emirates, is a bustling gold jewellery manufacturing center, and a growing hub of gold jewellery sales. Having carved out a solid reputation for selling genuine gold, as opposed to some other markets in the area, that have sold plated gold and gold alloys passed off as 18 or 24 Kt gold, in the past. Over 80 tons of gold have been fashioned into gold jewellery, so far this year (November 1, 2004), and this represents a 23% increase over last year. The United Arab Emirates annually imports 300 tons of gold annually, with the other 220 tons being traded and sold as bullion. The gold jewellery district in Dubai is called the Gold Souq, and it is visited thousands of Mid Eastern and Asian tourists each day, looking to buy gold jewellery. Over 5,000,000 tourists visit Dubai each year, with about 70% of those visiting the gold district. Their chamber of commerce estimates this number will double or triple over the next 8 years. In constant dollars, that would mean over 240 tons of gold being sold in Dubai as jewellery each year. To put this number in prospective, this would represent about 7% of the total world production of gold, today! Many residents in the Mid East currently view gold as one of the better methods to acquire wealth, and they likewise purchase it in large quantities. It is estimated that every day, over 25 tons of gold jewellery is on display in the retail shops of the Gold Souq in Dubai. The local merchants claim that gold jewellery purchased in Dubai is often 50% lower than comparable pieces purchased in Europe. Judging from the volume of gold jewellery sold in Dubai, they must be right. This makes Dubai a hot spot of consumer gold purchasing and now the Dubai Metals and Commodities Center is making investing in gold futures, and gold bullion all that much easier for Mid-Eastern residents. Dubai is truly a City of Gold, and by all appearances, will be shining brightly for some time to come. |
| But that's just my opinion. Charles Kubach Mine-Engineer.Com |
