Loading ...UPDATE: No Chinese banks in new London Gold Fixing system – yet
The new benchmarking process for gold in London has begun today, but without any direct Chinese involvement as yet. The new London Gold Fix – or LBMA Gold Price – as it is now called is beginning with only a small change from the participants in the old system – Barclays, HSBC, SocGen and Bank of Nova Scotia, will now be joined by UBS and Goldman Sachs to make up the number to six.
According to the LBMA there is as yet going to be no direct participation by any of the three Chinese banks which have expressed interest in joining and would appear to qualify for inclusion under the strict guidelines for doing so. The first new LBMA Gold Price benchmark price under the new system came in at $1171.75 at 10.30 am GMT this morning.
Many observers had felt that the inclusion of one or more of the Chinese banks – ICBC, Bank of China and China Construction Bank – would be inevitable from the start of the new process, but as we pointed out here a few days ago (See: Fixing the Gold Fix – with or without the Chinese banks?) their inclusion at the start was certainly not inevitable – even though China is comfortably the world’s largest consumer of gold whatever the World Gold Council and GFMS may say in qualifying what they present as Chinese consumption figures. China is also comfortably the world’s largest producer of the yellow metal and it seems extremely strange, and can only contribute to the thinking of those who believe the gold price is being suppressed by the establishment of major central banks and the bullion banks. Whether this is, in reality, the case or not will obviously be a continuing debate, but it does seem to be odd that given the huge undisputed flows of physical gold from West to East that the gold price has performed so badly over the past few years.
more http://www.mineweb.com/news/gold/no-chinese-banks-in-new-london-gold-fixing-system-yet/