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The India Bullion and Jewellery Association (IBJA) has launched a retail venture with gold bars and silver coins in Mumbai.
To start with, the bullions will be available between one gram and one kg at IBJA’s office at Zaveri Bazaar in Mumbai. Plans are on to rope in retailers and launch online sales in the near future, said Prithviraj Kothari, Vice-President, IBJA and Managing Director, RiddiSiddhi Bullion.
Speaking at the second India International Bullion Summit here, he said the gold coins and bars would have IBJA’s hallmarking with assurance of finest purity and would be priced at market rates. The association plans to source bullion from both domestic and overseas suppliers depending on the economic viability. IBJA will incur a nominal cost of ₹50-60 a gram to sell under its own brand.
The Bombay Bullion Association which was rechristened recently as IBJA to include jewellers, discontinued selling gold after trade liberalisation.
Rajesh Khosla, Managing Director, MMTC Pamp, called for foreign direct investment in gold refining and minting to efficiently tap the 25,000 tonnes of gold lying idle with Indian households.
“Even if we target to monetise one per cent of domestic gold, it would add up to 250 tonnes. This cannot be handled by MMTC Pamp alone. We need to have world class refineries in India,” he said.
Urging the industry to target an export growth of $40 billion by 2020, Somasundaram PR, Managing Director (India), World Gold Council, said the country should aim to become the jeweller to the world and create five million new jobs across the value chain including manufacturing, retailing, assaying and recycling.
In order to address the Government’s concerns over large-scale gold imports increasing the current account deficit, he said India should meet 40 per cent of its gold demand through recycling domestic gold holdings lying idle with households and temples.
A meaningful gold deposit scheme needs to be evolved to put the idle asset to good use and reduce the country’s dependence on imports in the next five years, he said.
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