On the face of things the latest gold import figures via Hong Kong certainly suggest a sharp downturn in Chinese demand, which started to kick in after some exceedingly strong import figures around the Chinese New Year. As the table above shows import figures for the four months from March to June are very substantially below those of a year earlier – and overall, for the first six months of the year net imports via Hong Kong are down by 12% - but the trend is rather worse than that figure might suggest with the March to June period net imports down a massive 42%.

What all the above suggests is that Hong Kong gold import data may no longer carry quite as much weight as a proxy for China’s gold imports from the West as before. It is likely that other ports of entry – notably Beijing and Shanghai – are becoming ever more significant trade routes for gold being imported into China, and this may even be a deliberate ploy on behalf of the Chinese government to muddy the waters on assessing its gold import levels as it does not publish the figures for imports by any other route.