India MMTC Ltd last week announced that their new gold refinery in Haryana will be delayed for at least three months due to the installing of machinery. The refinery, which is 72 percent owned by MMTC with PAMP holding the rest of it, is in Haryana and is expected to produce coins from 100 tonnes of gold in the first year. The refinery was to start production by September, but it has now been delayed to December as it took time for the company to absorb technology as told by Rajesh Khosla, managing director of MMTC-PAMP India Pvt Ltd on Saturday to Reuters at a conference in Varca in Goa.
Photo by Reuters: gold bar for sale"The demand for coins is quite good and prices haven't made much of a difference (to sales)," said Khosla, who has been the India representative for the precious metals company PAMP for several years, facilitating sales of gold bars and coins.
Khosla said the refinery, being built with an investment of 600 million rupees ($12.8 million), would import 160-170 tonnes of gold concentrates from South Africa and Australia as raw material as India hardly produces any gold. MMTC Chairman Sanjiv Batra told Reuters earlier this year that they also expect to export gold coins from the refinery.
India's investment segment for gold is small, but has been growing faster than the jewellery segment as Indians realise the benefits of holding gold as an investment product. India is the world's top consumer of the metal and MMTC is one of its biggest gold importers. In the April to June quarter, India's investment demand for gold was at 41.5 tonnes, up 7 percent on year, while jewellery demand stood at 123 tonnes, down 2 percent on year, data from the World Gold Council shows.
The second quarter of the calendar year saw gold notching up gains of nearly 12 percent (the highest quarterly gain in more than two years) as Europe's debt woes burnished the metal's safe-haven appeal. Spot gold hit a record high of more than $1,260 per ounce in June this year. Khosla said the refinery aims to produce coins with 200 tonnes of gold in the second year of operation.
MMTC is an authorized agency of the Government of India for import of gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rough diamonds, emeralds, rubies and other semi-precious stones and supplies these items to jewellers in India for domestic sales and exports. During 2009-10, MMTC Limited, (A Govt. of India Enterprise) is India’s Premier bullion trader, handling more than 185 MTs of Gold & 690 MTs of Silver. The company also operates an in-house assaying and hallmarking unit at New Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Kolkatta for testing purity of gold and gold articles duly accredited with Bureau of Indian Standards. MMTC has a unit in New Delhi for manufacturing its own brand of gold and silver medallions since the year 1996.
Source: Reuters India, MMTC Ltd website.
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