CPM Group says silver demand expanding strongly:
NEW YORK, May 12 (Reuters) - Silver demand is rising strongly, especially in the United States, India, Thailand and some countries in Europe, the CPM Group's biweekly Market Timing Advisory, made available to Reuters, said Wednesday.
Industry consultants CPM said total silver use in industrial applications is expected to increase 3.3 percent to 849 million ounces this year from 822.2 million in 1998.
''Fabricators and investors continue to be active buyers and the physical silver market is increasingly tight,'' the Group, the world's leading source of silver market data, said.
The photographic sector will account for the biggest chunk of demand. It could absorb 270.5 million ounces of silver in 1999, a 5.2 percent rise from 257.1 million ounces last year.
Silver use in jewelry and silverware is projected to rise 4 percent this year to 304.2 million ounces from 292.6 million in 1998.
''Demand is trending higher in the European Union, with significantly higher silver use in Italy and Germany, and flat to slightly lower demand in France, the United Kingdom and elsewhere,'' CPM said in its report.
Japanese demand may slip this year but silver consumption is running at a healthy level in Thailand, where it is used extensively by the jewelry sector, and may recover in South Korea and Taiwan.
Silver demand is expanding in Mexico, but is soft in the rest of Latin America, CPM said.
Domestic Indian fabrication demand has picked up over the past seven weeks, stimulated by good harvests in the country's south and uncertainties surrounding the collapse of the government in New Delhi.
Investment demand also has been holding up well, with private investors continuing to add coins and small bars to their holdings.
Silver Eagle coin sales in the first four months of 1999 shot up 249.7 percent to 2,728,000 ounces from 780,000 ounces in the same period in 1998.
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