BEIJING (Commodity Online): China is riding a platinum wave now with the wedding season witnessing a major crave for the white metal.

Most of the Chinese brides now love platinum because it goes so well with a white wedding dress.

The new found Chinese demand may help the platinum industry to beat the recession blues it suffered following the fall in demand from the auto sector.

Johnson Matthey, the UK-based company, said in a report published earlier this week that Chinese jewellery would this year absorb 1.75m ounces of platinum, 80 per cent more than in 2008 and almost a third of all that sold in the market this year.

According to a report appeared in the Financial Times,
it is going to be a platinum and marriage boom in China now.

The number of weddings also increased by 10.8 per cent last year to almost 11m as 2009 is viewed as a good year to wed, since the Chinese word for nine sounds like the word for “forever”, the FT said.

The shift to platinum appears to mark a profound cultural shift in a country that traditionally prefers gold, which among other things, goes better with customary red wedding garments. But Chinese brides are increasingly wearing white or holding dual ceremonies, one red and one white, in spite of white’s association with funerals. For a white gown, a bride wants platinum.

Brides also think that platinum is more modern. Chinese demand will help compensate for a plunge in demand from catalytic converters, which use platinum to absorb motor vehicle pollutants. The depressed global auto industry is expected to buy only 2.48m ounces in 2009.