In late April, UBS’s precious metals team visited China, which has played a key role in the gold market this year (as discussed extensively here, here, here and elsewhere) – taking in Beijing and Shanghai, easily commutable via a 400 km/hour bullet train in just over four hours. The two centers offered valuable insights into the country’s gold market against a challenging macroeconomic backdrop marked by property devaluations and a weak currency. The team’s visit was a follow-up to a trip taken nine months before.

The report matters because over the last three years, UBS’s footprint has grown considerably into one of the leading suppliers of physical gold to China (it has done this by re-enabling the infrastructure to settle gold via the Shanghai Gold Exchange International ).

China is the largest consuming and producing nation of gold on earth. Of around 3,500 tonnes that is dug out of the ground in primary supply, China consumes around a third of it and produces around 350 tonnes. The balance, 600-700 tonnes, is the universe UBS competes with as an international supplier of gold.