“I don’t have the brain for stock investments, and I am waiting to redeem mutual fund products once they break even. But in the meantime, I have been continuously buying gems,” says Zhu.
Zhu says she is searching for oddly-shaped rubies of higher grades, hoping the value of those little gems will surge with time. She is not alone.
Jewellery and precious metals consumption in China soared 37.4% in March from a year earlier underpinning a 13.6% jump for the quarter and topping the list of items that stoked a surge in first-quarter retail sales, official data showed on Tuesday.
China’s economy grew at a faster-than-expected pace in the first quarter, with retail sales rising 10.6%, beating forecasts for a 7.4% increase by a large margin.
The interest in precious metals is a worrying indicator that China’s efforts to revive its economy via domestic spending, after years of strict COVID curbs, may not be working.
“High-end consumption…
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