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Gold/Mining/Energy : Mining News of Note -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LoneClone who wrote (37557)	5/24/2009 11:29:33 AM
From: LoneClone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 195029

Gold jewellery sales plunge by 20% in Japan 2009-05-23 20:05:00 commodityonline.com Recession is hitting hard the gold jewellery sales in Japan. Department store sales in Japan saw sales sag 11.3 percent in April, down for the 14th month in a row, according to the Japan Department Stores Association. Sales of jewelry, artwork and precious metals dropped 20.5 percent. The continued year-over-year decline in consumer purchases is, however slowing, with the rate of decline narrowing by 1.8 percent compared to March. Fair weather reportedly helped attract customers, who spent ¥514.42 billion ($5.44 billion) at department stores. The Japanese government started to handing out cash benefits in April, a move aimed at increasing consumer spending. The effects of the cash handouts should begin to be felt at department stores in major cities only sometime during May because it is taking large cities longer to hand out the cash to residents, the association said. But gold futures is doing brisk business in Japan. Reflecting the popularity of the yellow metal as an investment, the open interest in the gold mini contract, launched in July 2007, hit a record high last month, according to Tokyo Commodity Exchange Inc (TOCOM), exceeding that of the standard gold contract. TOCOM will extend trading hours of all derivatives contracts later this year to boost liquidity after Japan's main commodity market launches upgraded trading systems in June. While Japanese retail investors are waking up to the attraction of commodity investment, the pace of growth may be moderate. About 20 percent of those investing in gold, for instance, are investing in TOCOM's gold mini contract and about 10 percent are actively trading.