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Silver Diwali in the making
SILVER is back in the reckoning despite gold prices slipping to affordable levels. The jewellers in city?s sarafa market are reporting brisk pre-Diwali sales of silver jewellery with intricate design patterns, traditionally attempted only with gold as raw material.
SILVER is back in the reckoning despite gold prices slipping to affordable levels. The jewellers in city’s sarafa market are reporting brisk pre-Diwali sales of silver jewellery with intricate design patterns, traditionally attempted only with gold as raw material.
“Gold would never lose its glitter. However, jewellers are deploying additional manpower for attempting some of the most amazing patterns of designs associated with gold only for decades,” O P Agarwal, president of the Uttar Pradesh Sarafa Federation, told Hindustan Times.
The reason behind the changed perception among jewellers during festive seasons is increased buyers interest towards silver, which is becoming an equally important asset vis-à-vis gold as a highly tradable item across the world.
Says Agarwal: “The underlying trends in the local sarafa markets indicate a high level of speculative activity particularly in silver stocks among buyers not witnessed in the previous years. The consumption of silver in various sarafa markets has already reached 15 tonnes per day from the usual peak season consumption of around 10 tonnes per day ahead of Diwali in the state. This is indicative of a very firm order book position with most jewellers not just in Lucknow but across the state.”
Despite the rising demand for silver in local markets from speculators, the raw material supplies for making various silver items have not been affected, as market trends indicate no shortage of silver in the country during the current festive season, he says. “The record gold sales in Uttar Pradesh during Pitrapaksh has had a cascading effect on silver stocks which are witnessing a high demand from bulk purchasers,” Agarwal adds.
“Considering the fact that there is sufficient stock of gold and silver with stockists, it appears unlikely that the local markets would witnesses any price spiral during Diwali,” he said.
Silver prices are currently pegged around Rs 18,000 per kg which is down by Rs 2,000 from its previous high of Rs 20,000 per kg recorded during April 2006.
There is also a huge industrial demand for silver in the state which seems to have prompted even larger imports of the metal by leading stockists to meet the demand, he says.
