Yellow Devil Drove The Chinese Crazy

The gold rush is likely to touch a feverish pitch in China, China Daily reported Thursday.

In a Beijing store, 300 kilograms of gold bars minted by the China Gold Coin Inc to commemorate the Year of the Rooster, going for retail price of 125 yuan (US$15.60) a gram, were sold out within seven hours on November 19.

Next time Beijing Caishikou Department Store arranged the sale of the second lot of gold bars on November 26 through a telephone hotline to shun panic, although the price for each gram of a bar has increased to 128 yuan (US$15.42) this time, demand exceeded supply by a big margin.

Their combined profits for the first three quarters of 2004 jumped 35 per cent from a year earlier to more than 2 billion yuan (US$240 million). China's gold production during those three quarters increased 7 per cent from a year earlier to 149 tons, while demand is expected to increase to 220 tons in 2004 from 207 tons in 2003.