UNTUK TESTING

INTERNATIONAL. Gold may advance next week on speculation that demand from jewellers and other buyers of the physical metal will rebound.

Fourteen of 34 traders, investors and analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News, or 41%, said gold would climb. Eleven people forecast lower prices and nine were neutral.

Gold fell on Friday closing the week down and recording its fourth weekly decline, the longest losing streak since August, as a stronger dollar, a better performance by the US financial sector and a global stock rally eroded demand for the metal as a store of value.

Spot gold prices closed at US$868.70 an ounce at down by about 0.7% from its Thursday quote in New York. The London afternoon gold fix was US$870.50 an
ounce.

New York gold futures ended about 1.5% lower Friday with the June contract down US$11.90, or 1.4%, at US$867.90 an ounce on the COMEX division of New York.

“Scrap sales have slowed and physical demand has picked up,” James Moore, an analyst at TheBullionDesk.com in London, wrote in an e-mail.

Gold demand in India, the world's largest bullion market, firmed as traders stocked up ahead of the Hindu festival of Akshaya Tritya.

The World Gold Council (WGC) said on Friday that India's demand may rise during the Akshaya Tritiya festival falling this year on 27 April, an auspicious day for buying precious metals even as gold prices are projected to further appreciate in the coming months.

"It would be fair to say that this (Akshaya Tritiya) is the most favourable time to buy gold," the WGC said in a statement.

India has resumed gold imports, it was reported Friday. The largest gold market in the world, which imports around 700 to 800 tons of gold annually, had virtually halted purchases as consumers weren't willing to buy because of high prices.

The Bloomberg weekly gold survey has forecast prices accurately in 151 of 257 weeks, or 59% of the time.

According to research consultancy GFMS's Gold Survey 2009, world demand for jewellery fell 10% last year, supply of scrap rose by 27%, official sales halved, investment demand soared 61%.

Longer term, Philip Klapwijk, executive chairman of GFMS, thinks the price (in dollars) may weaken a little further, "particularly during a summer lull," but "an investor-led rally to well above US$1,000 this year is quite probable, and a breach of US$1,100 cannot be discounted."