Australian gold exports to Hong Kong and China were 54% higher Q1 2017 versus the same quarter last year:
As we can see in the chart above, Australia exported 57.4 metric tons (mt) of gold in Q1 2017 compared to 37.2 mt Q1 2016. What a difference in ten years. Australian gold exports to Hong Kong and China were nonexistent in 2008. However, after the U.S. and global market meltdown that year, China started to import more gold, especially since 2011.
Even though I compared Q1 2017 Australian gold exports to China to the first quarters of previous years in the chart above, the data for all quarters shows that the present quarter is the highest amount on record.
Furthermore, Australia is now exporting the majority of its gold to Hong Kong and China. For example, of the total 75 mt of Australian gold exports Q1 2017, 57.4 mt or 77% went to Hong Kong and China. Here was the breakdown for Q1 2017.
Australian Gold Exports Q1 2017:
Hong Kong & China = 57.4 mt
U.K. = 7 mt
Singapore = 2.1 mt
India = 2.0 mt
Thailand = 2.0 mt
Other = 4.5 mt
In addition, of the 83 mt of Australian gold exports Q4 2016, two-thirds made their way to Hong Kong and China. So, we can plainly see that China is importing the most gold from Australia ever.
Now, what is even more interesting is that Australian exports more gold than they produce from their domestic gold mines. This is also true for the United States. I decided to take the gold mine supply and gold export figures from these two countries to produce the chart below:
Here we can see that Australia and the U.S. produced a combined 510 mt of gold in 2016, but their gold exports totaled 762 mt. Thus, these two countries exported nearly 50% more gold than they produced in 2016.
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