Gold jewellery demand sees tentative increase as shops begin to reopen

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Jun 14, 2021

As lockdown restrictions across many of India’s metros begin to permit non-essential retail operations, gold demand has increased this week but stores are still offering discounts and remain tentative to order more stock.

Indian brick-and-mortar gold jewellery retailers are seeing business begin to return as the ‘non-essential’ stores begin to re-open. Gold dealers are still offering significant discounts of up to $12 (Rs 878) an ounce of gold over official domestic prices, inclusive of 10.75% import and 3% sales levies in a bid to get business rolling again, ET Bureau reported. 
 
"Slowly, businesses are opening up in a few states,” bullion dealer RiddiSiddhi Bullions’ director Mukesh Kothari told Reuters. “As new coronavirus cases are falling, expectations are most states will ease restrictions in the next few weeks.”

On Monday morning, India reported its lowest coronavirus case count in 74 days at 70,421 infections with 3,921 deaths reported in the past 24 hours, the Economic Times reported. Monday also saw states Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Haryana relax certain lockdown restrictions in many areas. Delhi has also begun its ‘unlock’ process which will see retail outlets continue to operate with more relaxed restrictions among other changes. 
 
As lockdown restrictions continue to ease, jewellers will be hoping that pent-up wedding demand will lead to an increase in gold jewellery sales. However, new reports of a suspected ‘Delta+’ new coronavirus variant is leading a general uncertainty to continue.