DUBAI (Commodity Online): The World Gold Council (WGC) said on Monday that gold sales across the countries in Middle East will considerably pick up in 2010 thanks to better market conditions and rising demand for the yellow metal.

Countries in the Middle East, led by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), are major consumers of gold, after China and India, globally. Dubai, part of the UAE, is the largest importer and consumer of gold in the Gulf region.

WGC Managing Director for Middle East and Turkey Anan Fakhreddin told reporters that people in the Middle East are increasingly betting on gold as a safe haven asset. “Gold demand in the region is picking up and thus gold sales are increasing,” he said.

He said that there is rising awareness of gold as an investment avenue which is leading to better sales of the yellow metal despite the current high prices. “WGC estimates that gold sales in Middle East will go up in 2010,” Fakhreddin said.

To spread more awareness about gold across the Middle East, WGC is going to launch a new brand of gold jewellery in the next couple of weeks targeting the middle income groups and above, mainly for the Saudi and the UAE markets.

“The new brands will be available in 18, 21 and 22 Karrets and target women who buy gold jewellery as an expression of their confidence and power. The whole thing will be new, the brand concept will be new, the design will be new, the campaign on why people should buy gold now will be new,” the WGC Managing Director pointed out.

He said WGC is also set to launch a new campaign to position gold as safe investment.

Demand for gold jewellery has ebbed across the world. The World Gold Council has announced that the demand for gold as an investment product has surged the highest in the Middle East triggering sales of scrap gold.

A WGC report said last year that gold investment in Middle East jumped 38 per cent in 2008 compared with 2007's fourth quarter. Saudi Arabia saw a massive 300 per cent jump in investment demand, Egypt 67 per cent and other Gulf countries registered a two per cent increase.

While UAE gold jewellery sales increased by 17 per cent in 2008 to exceed Dh13.7 billion compared with Dh11.4 billion in 2007, total gold demand in the Middle East was up one per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared with 2007, said the Gold Council report.  WGC's gold demand report for Middle East for the year 2009 is yet to be released.

Nearly 90 per cent of total gold consumer offtake in Middle East is in the form of jewellery.

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