Japan braces for gold smuggling rush in shadows of tax hike
By GCRU Gold News on Wednesday, September 5 2018, 01:01 - Permalink
As Japan prepares to raise the consumption tax for the first time in half a decade next year, the Ministry of Finance worries that gold smuggling will also get a boost.
Japan even "exported" 215 tons of gold in 2017, despite being a producer of only tens of tons domestically. That was almost double the 114 tons exported in 2014.
Official gold imports, meanwhile, dropped to 5 tons in 2017 from 16 tons in 2014. The scale of smuggling is said to exceed 150 tons.