The flow from West to East

In the first breakdown of gold trade data provided by the Swiss customs agency since 1980, January saw an incredible 80% of bullion exports go to Asia.  44% went to Hong Kong (plus 6.3% direct into mainland China), 14% to India (even in a month when they are largely waiting for the import restrictions to be lifted before buying…) and 8.6% to Singapore.  7.9% went to UAE which is a renowned back door for smuggling into India.  60% of imports came from London with the next highest 4.9% from the US. What does this say?  It validates previous data that gold is leaving the vaults of London (ETF’s and Comex deposits), being recast to 1kg bars and shipped to the strong hands of the east, with over 50% into China.  That can only end one way…