Tanaka Kikinzoku Records Higher Gold Buy in January-May

Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo, Japanese maker and dealer of precious metals and related products, announced on Friday the firm purchased 3.6 times of gold ingot from investors during January-May 2006 from the same period of 2005, which represented 85 as index against 100 of purchased gold ingot volume through 2001. The firm purchases higher volume when gold investors try to liquidate the holding gold under the surging market price. However, the investors keep buying at near normal level. The investors transact gold at higher level both in buy and sell. The firm’s gold purchase volume to May reached 80% of annual purchase volume in 2005. The index in 2006 could exceed record 107 in 2005 if the gold market price would keep the high level. The firm’s gold sales volume to May also kept high level except for March, when the gold price decreased temporally, as 2005. The sales index to May was 31, which deceased by 21% from same period of 2005. The lower sales were due to temporally lower sales in January caused by drop of gold price but the sales in February-May were in line with same period of 2005.