China ranks 2nd for gold resources after South Africa

China has the second-largest gold resources in the world, while mining has kept producing greater amounts of gold in each of the last three years, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology(MIIT) announced on Friday.

"China ranks second in the world's gold resources, following South Africa. The newly detected resource increase has outweighed consumption and production for several consecutive years," Chen Yanhai, head of the raw material industry department of the MIIT, said at a symposium on the gold industry held in Lanzhou, Northwest China's Gansu Province.

A total of 8,194.2 tons of gold resources were detected by the end of 2012 and China has welcomed 2,552 tons of new gold resources since 2011, with 917 tons newly detected last year, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Mines in Lingbao, Central China's Henan Province contributed 120 tons of gold last year and others in eastern Shandong Province produced 241. New gold was detected in Yunnan and Guizhou provinces as well as the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Xu Dachun, an official at the Ministry of Land and Resources, previously told the China Gold News that China was active in detecting and digging gold even when gold prices were low on the international market.

Zhang Bingnan, secretary-general of the China Gold Association, told the Global Times that China has grown into a leading power in the gold industry, a significant contributor to national economic and financial security.

Chen pointed out the nation's consumption of gold passed India in 2013 for the first time in history, making it the world's largest gold consumer. The nation consumed 1,176.4 tons of gold last year, a rise of 41.3 percent over 2012: nearly one-third of the world's gold product consumption.

China's demand for gold bars and coins dropped 55 percent in the first three months of 2014 compared with the same period last year, according to World Gold Council (WGC) statistics. Demand for gold jewelry grew 10 percent over the same period.

China is the largest gold production country for the seventh year running: 428.16 tons last year.

"This is a 6.23 percent year-on-year increase, which is a record high," said China Gold Association director Song Xin. "China has seen a great leap forward in all sectors of its gold industry from gold digging to transactions."

Meanwhile, China's ranking for gold reserves stood at seventh place in the world as of June, while the US leads as always, WGC said.

"The increasing gold resources show that China's gold industry is fully competitive in potential. However, our gold reserve is inadequate at both national and grass-roots level," Zhang said.

"China should work to increase its gold reserves, which will support the credibility of the renminbi as it goes international."