MUMBAI (TIP): The World Gold Council (WGC) on May 14 announced that the demand for gold in India continues to be stable with a 15 per cent increase in Q1 Calender Year 2015 at 191.7 tonnes, as compared with 167.1 tonnes in Q1 CY2014.

Briefing reporters, WGC Managing Director Somasundaram P R said that though the Q1 CY2015 demand was still below the five-year average, the growth was a reflection of the muted demand in the same period last year due to crippling GOLD import policies coupled with weak economic sentiment and TRADE uncertainty at the time of the general elections.

He added that following the partial removal of the import curbs (with the exception of a duty reduction) and the Budget announcements introducing new GOLD products, the environment for GOLD has been encouraging in the past few months, resulting in buying behaviour slowly returning to normalcy.

India’s Q1 2015 gold demand value was Rs 46,730.6 crore, exhibiting a nine-per cent gain as compared with Rs 42,898.6 crore in Q1 2014, he said.