You can also listen to this podcast on iono.fm here.
SIMON BROWN: I’m chatting with Krishan Gopaul, market strategist at the World Gold Council, we’ve just had the Global Demand Trends report out for the fourth quarter and full year 2025. Krish, appreciate the time, records everywhere, demand in 2025, 5 000 tonnes. In fact, I think 5 002 tonnes, for the first time above 5 000. Of course, subsequent to year end, in the last week or so, we’ve got the gold price through $5 000/ounce. It’s been a stellar year.
KRISHAN GOPAUL: Yeah, absolutely. It really has been an eye-catching time in the gold market. As you say, annual gold demand of over 5 000 tonnes, in value terms, that’s over $550 billion. That’s 45% up year-on-year and all of that is against the backdrop of the gold price, which was up 67% during the year, during which it also set 53 all-time highs, and it’s continued in that vein as we’ve moved into 2026.
SIMON BROWN: Yeah, I think January, I haven’t checked, but last I did check it was over 20% up in January alone. It’s been stellar. Let’s touch on central banks, they were year-on-year down 21%. In fact, the previous three years had been plus 1 000 tonnes. This was down from that. But still, if it wasn’t for that, it would have been a record year.
The central banks are still buying, but perhaps a little more cautiously. My sense is that would perhaps be more around price rather than circumstances, because geopolitically the story is still there.
KRISHAN GOPAUL: Absolutely. Yes, you’re absolutely right. So I think the central bank’s buying of 863 tonnes last year was slightly below the 1000-ton level, which we saw in ’22, ’23 and ’24. But if you compare that to the annual average that we saw before – so 2010 to 2021 – it’s actually significantly above. So it’s still very, very healthy.
But nonetheless, you’re absolutely right, it was a slightly slower pace last year, and the price rally was somewhat of a headwind for central banks. You rightly point out that the environment that we’re in is still very conducive to gold investment and still very much conducive and supportive for further central bank buying.
SIMON BROWN: Absolutely. We did see a bit of selling as well – Russia, no surprises there. But from Singapore, you’ve tweeted as well, and more recently Ghana, although Ghana rebalancing, and then Tanzania, where they’re using it to fund infrastructure, which actually makes a bit of sense. I’d never really looked at the selling side before. I suppose there is a little bit, but it really is at the tail.
KRISHAN GOPAUL: Yeah, absolutely. It’s very much a two-way market; there is buying and there is selling. But what you can see from the report is selling is hugely outweighed by the levels of buying that we see. Those sales tend to, when they do come, tend to be more tactical in nature for very specific reasons amongst central banks.
So that’s why whenever we look at any particular sale, we always look for the reasoning behind that, to understand, because it can differ between central banks. But again, it is, in comparison to the purchases, much, much smaller.
SIMON BROWN: Investments – and all investments, looking at bars, coins, ETFs (exchange-traded fund) and the like – strong. What, 84% up year-on-year? I’m reminded that in 2024 ETF demand was actually negative. Last year it was a little over 800 tonnes. The private investor has really come to the party in the last year in a significant way.
KRISHAN GOPAUL: It really has, yeah. You’re right to pinpoint gold ETFs. It was a huge swing from slightly small outflows in 2024 to significant inflows in 2025. What’s really interesting about that is it was geographically dispersed, so we look at it across the world. North American funds – the biggest market for gold ETFs – saw the largest inflows. But what was very interesting is that Europe, which I think is the second-largest market, was actually third for inflows. Asia overtook Europe last year in terms of the volume of inflows. They saw 215 tonnes. China in particular, their holdings within gold ETFs actually doubled.
So that was a real, real interesting dynamic. On the bar and coin side, you’re absolutely right. Again, we saw very strong demand, a 12-year high for that, and again, very strong in value terms. Again, that was very geographically dispersed. We saw a lot of interest across the various regions.
So again, highlighting that gold investment really was the standout story last year for many of the reasons that you’ll see in the news, the higher level of uncertainty that’s both happening in the geopolitical sphere and in the geo-economic sphere.
SIMON BROWN: Yeah, absolutely, and it stood out. I can remember India, it was the savings in India, and a very, very price-sensitive market – and we’re going back here a decade or more – exceedingly price sensitive.
But this has almost been, I suppose, to a degree, the speed at which gold has moved, and it almost – I don’t want to call it a FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) trade – but there’s a sense of you bought some and it worked. Because even India, which is called price sensitive, year on year, 17% more demand.
KRISHAN GOPAUL: Yeah. There is certainly momentum being a factor here. As the price continues to increase, people’s expectations will adjust. If they believe that there is more room for gold to run, then they may want to either buy into gold or increase whatever holdings they may have already. So it’s definitely a factor amongst many.
We cite in the report that there are a broad range of factors that have really underpinned that investment demand, and to a lesser extent the central bank demand. But certainly, I think given the speed and scale at which the gold price has moved, it’s understandable that people are seeing that and wanting to get involved.
SIMON BROWN: Yeah. Mine production up only 1%. If you’re a gold mining executive, I imagine you’re looking at your old mines that perhaps weren’t profitable at $2000 or $3000. That’s probably going to start edging higher, although I don’t think necessarily fast, because greenfields are slow and brownfields often those mines are exceedingly challenging.
KRISHAN GOPAUL: You’re absolutely right. Changes in the gold price certainly influence the dynamics within the mining industry. Obviously, last year we saw a slight increase to what we think early estimates are suggesting is a new record high for annual demand. But mine production is often quite slow-moving and responds to the gold price with a lag.
So it remains to be seen. I think there are two questions really. Firstly, what will happen to the gold price as we move forward, and certainly, how will miners respond to that? We have seen, obviously, and we’ve written about how, as well as the gold price going up, the costs have gone up too, maybe to a lesser extent, which has supported their margins. How that translates into actions around operations going forward, we really have to wait and see.
SIMON BROWN: Do we start to see some hedging? Certainly, there was a bit of an uptick. Do we start to see – again, if I were a gold mining executive at plus $5000 – I would be deeply tempted to hedge at least some production. Do you expect an uptick in that?
KRISHAN GOPAUL: Well, certainly what we’ve seen is a continuing decline in the global hedge book. We’re a long way off the levels that we saw at the turn of the millennium, when it was up to around 3 000 tonnes. We’re now well below 200 tonnes.
I think the indications that we’re getting is that, for the time being at least – or when we wrote the report a couple of weeks ago – gold miners are still very much predisposed to remaining exposed to the gold price, given how it’s been performing.
I think also partly they’re obviously conscious of what their shareholders might think as well should the gold price continue to increase. There is, again, another interesting dynamic around that too.
SIMON BROWN: Yeah, their shareholders might be having a bit of a squiff look at them if they try to. We’ll leave it there. Krishan Gopaul, market strategist, World Gold Council, always appreciate the time.
#Whats #driving #record #gold #demand #market