China's Gold Output Jumps More Than 15%, Makes it a Target for Investment Profits

From Staff Reports

China’s gold output jumped 15.44% in the first seven months of the year, the biggest growth in the past 10 years, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported yesterday (Thursday). Total gold production reached 145 tons so far this year, the news agency said.

China’s gold industry produced 240 tons of gold and raked in a profit of roughly $763 million last year, according to a report made on Tuesday at a gold-industry forum held in Zhaoyuan, a center of gold production in Eastern China’s Shandong Province. China has seen gold production accelerate, with the number of producers with an output of more than one ton a year growing from about 25 in 2001 to roughly 40 today, the report said. Besides Zhaoyuan, the Xinhua news agency said that Lingbao in Henan Province, Qianxinan in Guizhou Province and Tongguan in Shaanxi Province turned out about 40 tons of gold from January to July this year.

With China’s growth, there’s an immense amount of money to be made either investing overseas, or by investing to profit from the growth trends being driven by development abroad. That’s where gold comes in. Gold is a precious metal, and it’s also a commodity. As newly minted consumers in China, India and Latin America become wealthy, they’ll increasingly want the same goods that households in America are buying: Jewelry, gold, gems, collector cars, baseball cards – these will all benefit from the ability to spend on wares that aren’t just necessities. That’s the core investment thesis here at Money Morning.

Right now, gold is trading in the area of $675 an ounce. But many analysts believe it could go higher – much higher, in fact. Indeed, by some estimates, gold could reach its all-time peak in the record range of $1,500 to $2,000 an ounce. In other words, it could triple from here. [Check out our news archives for the investment research essay: The Baywatch Effect: Can China’s Growth Help Gold Prices Triple? Like the rest of our news and investment research, it’s free of charge].

A good China mutual fund, or an ETF, will give you the long-term benefit of continued growth, enable you to ride out that economy’s inevitable ebbs and flows, and will provide some diversification, too. One fund that Aden Research recommends is the China Region Opportunity Fund (USCOX), which is managed by U.S. Global Investors (GROW). We have singled out U.S Global because it’s a company that several of our Money Morning analysts know quite well. Indeed, Investment Director Horacio Marquez says that its funds are well managed, and so is the company itself.

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Money Morning Investment Analysis: Can China’s Growth Help Gold Prices Triple?