- 20 hours ago
Speaking at the India Today Conclave 2026, Sachin Jain, Regional CEO (India) at the World Gold Council, said the factors supporting gold prices remain strong.
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00:00ladies and gentlemen good afternoon hope you've had a wonderful lunch and i promise that this is
00:04a session that you don't want to miss because if there is one question that all of us have asked
00:11in the last one year to our family members to our friends maybe to our colleagues at offices
00:17is all about gold and where is it really headed and we have just the right person to talk about
00:23gold to talk about investments and what should you be really truly invested in in the times
00:29of a wuka world that we are living in that's something that we are going to be focusing on
00:34remember gold has already rallied 75 percent in the last one year it's been a record year of sorts
00:41in fact 56 records is what gold made in the last one year as well so we're going to be
00:47finding out
00:48whether this record rally can continue for gold so please put your hands together to welcome my guest
00:54mr sachin jain regional ceo world gold council thank you so much sachin for joining here
01:06so sachin we're still living in a uncertain world we still have a lot of wars going on we have
01:12policy
01:13uncertainty probably everything that could go wrong with the world in the last couple of years
01:18has gone wrong and maybe that is one reason why gold has really rallied as a safe haven asset
01:24as it is believed to be but i want to understand from you where do we go from here can
01:29gold continue
01:30to outperform all the other asset classes that it has over the last couple of years even in the year
01:362026 thank you sakshi thanks for having me on and as i was sharing with you that i've been a
01:41part of
01:41the india treaty conclave for very many years as sitting in the audience and observing them really
01:47glated and world gold council me and my entire team are really proud to be at this platform and
01:52sharing our perspective on gold now you talk about what's really happening in the world of gold and i
01:56think it's important to understand the functionality of gold and the reasons why we consume gold 30 years
02:01back geographically and sectorally it is a very different consumption and today it's a very different
02:07way of the world of gold 30 years back central banks are net sellers and the main consumption
02:13reason of gold used to be jewelry right and western markets used to consume italy used to consume and
02:18so on so forth fast forward to today uh geographically the developing markets are consuming over 70
02:23percent of gold sectorally about 20 to 22 percent of the gold is used by central banks and that's
02:29the connected to the question that you answered you asked about 30 percent is jewelry about 40 42
02:34percent is investment demand and about 10 percent is coming from the the technological sector you know
02:39all the uh the systems of renewable energy use uh gold all your phones use gold and as ai gets
02:47more
02:47and more democratized the faster chips are using gold so it's a very important diverse usage now to your
02:52point what's really happening the current world of flux and yes the geopolitics impacts but i think the uh
02:58the structural world of today in terms of the global debt crossing 37 trillion dollars and the fiat
03:03currency getting printed left hand and center i think the confidence on those currencies are lesser
03:07and hence the the sheer importance of gold tends to be higher and we've seen that witness
03:12well not just in the last year but almost the last two years where this rally picked up led by
03:17central
03:17banks in 2024 and later by the investment demand in 2025 right so i think one question that everybody has
03:24in their minds right now is to find out whether this is the right time to buy gold what would
03:29you say
03:29uh have we already see its uh peak right now or will we see after an interim break it's cooled
03:36off from
03:36its record high levels but still at an expensive 1.6 lakh rupees per 10 grams so what should we
03:41do
03:42i think if you look at the uh the rate of gold i mean for example and we were talking
03:45about india
03:4625 years back 10 grams of gold was was 4 000 rupees even then it was expensive even then as
03:53a nation we
03:53consumed about 800 tons left somewhat around that time and we continue to be at the same level
03:58essentially because what's happening in india and how the wealth in india is going up as well
04:03and we've seen at world gold council and our research that every time one percent income or the wealth in
04:10the hands of indians goes up we see a 0.9 percent increase in the amount of gold so that's
04:14been
04:14consistent but i think in the current context the the investment demand is very strong and that's to do
04:19with how what's happening to gold is a rally but also the reserves of the world i mean about uh
04:24three
04:24years back the global reserves about 78 percent were in u.s back currency led schemes and deposits
04:30now that's down to 50 percent and that's to do with almost the domiciling of wealth of every nation
04:36is to do with how geopolitics panning out wars of course lead it but as i said structurally the world
04:41is
04:41a very different place but uh do you see gold prices also edging lower from where they are do you
04:46see the prices of one lakh rupees per 10 grams coming at all ever or below that or will we
04:52only
04:52see gold prices edge up from where they are i think what can happen in the future who knows but
04:56i think
04:56if you look at the gold price in tandem today and the pillars on which gold prices are built on
05:01and and
05:02if you took about scenarios if the you know us leadership and the china leadership and the russian
05:06leadership really fall in love with each other world becomes a perfect place with peace and harmony yes
05:12gold prices perhaps will come down as one of the reasons but i think in in a more realism world
05:18where we as a humanity we almost are now used to having some kind of a confusion happening in some
05:23part of the world the reasons why uh and particularly central banks for last year we witnessed that
05:28smaller countries smaller central banks have been accumulating gold so i think from that perspective i don't
05:35i see that the the pillars on which gold prices are built on are very strongly and in favor of
05:40gold
05:41however gold you have to look at from a very long term view stay on with it as world gold
05:46council we've
05:46always talked about gold as a great diversifier of your portfolio about 10 to 15 percent tends to be
05:51a good level by which your portfolio's health goes up but what's happened last years in particular
05:57that's the only reason we saw a plus but i think as a good diversifier as a hedge as a
06:02safe haven the
06:03lot of qualities of gold that in today's time make more relevance than holding gold so 75 run in the
06:09previous year how much can it run it this year well i can give a number as world gold council
06:14but i
06:14think again from a long term perspective this certainly has the potential to go further up and
06:19again as i said the the demand isn't a speculation demand as i've laid out in the beginning is sectoral
06:26driven central banks are buying for very strategic reasons of why gold and what it matters to a nation
06:32financial investors are buying gold for what it does is returns technological reasons are very new and you
06:38know if you go back in time 20 years back a lot of our films and a lot of our
06:42people had golden teeth
06:44and tooth of course that's gone but the usage of gold and technology is here to stay and lastly the
06:49jewelry demand and i think in india jewelry and gold is a part of our social fabric all of us
06:54have gold
06:55all of us have been owning it representing you know our life our history how we pass it from one
07:01generation to the other it's heirloom and i think all those elements even for the current context of
07:06millennials and gen z are relevant uh there's a lot of work happening in the gold sector in india
07:11ours is the first country in the world where every jewelry piece has to have a mandatory hallmarking
07:17which talks about the purity of gold i mean that's the steps that brings in more transparency and i think
07:22all sectors have a relevance so it's not one sector driven and hence the practical uh application of
07:28gold and the perhaps the pillars of gold are very strong in tandem so you rightly pointed out you know
07:33india and indians um you know indian households are always blamed to be probably obsessed with gold
07:39we currently hold about thirty thousand to thirty five thousand tons of gold that actually makes up
07:47for almost eleven percent of world's total gold so would you say that indians are obsessed with gold
07:54or have we been the smartest investors of all looking at the returns totally the smartest investors in the
07:59world and i think the indian housewife should be given that award of being the smartest investor not
08:04for decades but millennia and for i don't know how many years you know what she's done is she's not
08:08just
08:09bought wealth uh for her family and adornism for her family but she's truly got wealth and solidness
08:15to our nation in some way so certainly yes not just households i would say now increasingly central
08:21banks around the world are getting obsessed with gold they're rising their uh you know gold reserves indian
08:27central bank also has risen its own uh gold reserves which now constitute almost 16 to 17 percent
08:34of our forex reserves which used to be just about 67 percent a decade ago so we can say that
08:40the
08:40you know central banks are also betting big on gold right now can you help us understand at this point
08:45in time what are the implications of raising this figure from the central banks holding is it a prudent
08:52decision looking at this uncertain world right now or could there be any risks of that as well
08:59institutional investment in gold has been going up rampantly and i think the reasons of course for
09:03central banks are slightly more strategic certain more critical about where the nation stands there's
09:08a lot of de-domiciling that happens so you you would have heard how rbi has moved our gold back
09:13to
09:13our nation and i think those are the scenes that we see but any institution is looking at any other
09:19financial investor or an asset manager and hence the rule of world cannot be in today's time nullified
09:24so those are the relevant scenes but also what's happening if you look at the future and at least
09:29all the sophisticated central banks and as world world council we do a lot of work with central banks
09:33closely we see that gold itself will transform into a very technological savvy asset backed by blockchain
09:40it'll be fungible accessible authentic so it'll behave in the coming time as any contemporary asset class
09:47and i think with that the whole you know gold which was known to be a sleepy asset opaque you
09:53don't
09:54know what's going on i think all those elements are going to go away and it's going to behave when
09:58you
09:58are sitting on your portfolio as importantly and next to next to any other asset class what would you say
10:04is the best form of holding gold in case one is very big as an investment class right now like
10:10you
10:10pointed out indian households have been having some sort of jewelry as gold exposure and only recently
10:16the investment aspect has been brought in that you need to have 10 to 15 percent of your overall
10:23portfolio in gold and that does not have to be jewelry there has to be other forms maybe exchange
10:28traded funds it was sovereign gold bonds up until now maybe gold mutual funds what do you think it's
10:33the best form of holding gold right now well uh globally for example last year we uh the traded value
10:39of gold crossed about 200 and we'll bring 200 225 billion dollars per day now that if you translate
10:46in iron our terms it's about 18 lakh 70 000 crores of gold that got transacted on a daily basis
10:52which
10:53makes gold as the most liquid acid on planet earth so that's that's what to put it into context reserve
11:00bank
11:00of india currently has about 100 billion dollars worth of gold is that right so put it in that
11:05and and that's the value of gold that got transacted on a daily basis now look at india from perspective
11:10the investment demand of gold is going up dramatically the move is moving from physical to digital and
11:16that's not to do with the the the sophistication of gold in particular but also the youngsters that are
11:22driving this demand and today we i mean traditionally we wanted to hold gold put it under the bed and
11:28sit
11:28on top of it today consumers are very comfortable setting that your assets are holding on a digital
11:33screen so i think digital reasons of consumption are going to go up you mentioned about etfs the
11:38exchange traded funds backed by physical gold which is a great form of investment uh which is
11:42regulated by sebi every time you put one rupee or you put 100 crore rupees on that it's backed by
11:48physical gold but also i mean i wouldn't want to deter the even the relevance of jewelers in our country
11:53and how physical gold is important how jewelry is important and and as i was mentioning about
11:57mandatory hallmarking the issues about purity are lesser and consumers are looking at buying
12:03different avenues and different they'll be different solutions we believe the the rural india
12:07which still rise about 40 percent of indian demands comes from rural india will have different ways of
12:12that solution and and i would say welcome to this world of gold look at all elements whatever works for
12:17you go in that but uh products like etf which are which are backed by a regulatory uh backing of
12:25sebi
12:25are great forms of investment and uh and you know you buy jewelry which is great to adorn and feel
12:31good as
12:31well one more aspect is of how silver is being now talked about as the new gold we've seen in
12:38the last one
12:39year how silver prices have overshadowed gold returns as well we saw silver prices rise up to
12:46what four lakh rupees a kilo now down to 2.7 lakh rupees a kilo what is it that about
12:52silver that
12:52you can tell us do you see silver out shining gold in the next one decade well i'm not an
12:58expert in
12:59silver but what i've been reading about silver has been that the whole rally of silver was was being bet
13:04on
13:04the fact of industrial usage of silver in different forms of solar and other energy systems now the
13:10problem is that at this level or the levels that you mentioned about four and a half lakh rupees per
13:14kilo at that levels of pricing those industrial usages don't seem to be you know logical and hence
13:21they were promises that were long term not standing on the feet so i'm not an expert in silver and
13:26hence i
13:26think what we've seen as the rallies of silver uh i think there was there was also momentum created where
13:31everybody had that fomo or if i've not gone into gold or silver i should get into it but i
13:35think
13:36my only advice to any investor would be that look at gold and perhaps even silver from a long-term
13:41lens
13:42what you can hold how you can rally with it because these are assets for long term and holding and
13:46they will then start performing you know better health to your own portfolio so you talk about long
13:52term and i wanted to bring up this figure 10 years ago we looked at the gold price it was
13:57somewhere
13:57around 29 000 rupees per 10 grams today it's at 1 lakh 60 000 rupees per 10 grams it's a
14:04whopping 460
14:05percent return that you've actually seen over the last decade do you see such kind of returns
14:11replicating over the next 10 years are the situations and the triggers enough to propel the gold in a way
14:17we've seen in the last one year one 10 years and do you see even more coming in as far
14:23as the factors are
14:23concerned as vulgar council we don't project a number but what i can really say is that the
14:28sectoral usage is an important consideration because it's not somebody betting it's a real usage
14:34for strategic reasons for nations for financial investors for technology and i think jewelry which
14:40is which as 30 years back was the only reason to consume is also going through a flux in terms
14:44of
14:45you know making products making more uh brands and so on so forth so i think one is that element
14:50the
14:50other important element is that when you look at india from a long-term perspective we're talking about
14:54all of us marching towards a very important destination laid out by a respectable prime minister
14:58or vixit bharat 2047 where there will be more wealth in the hands of indians when we say our 4
15:04.5
15:04trillion dollar economy has the potential to get to 30 trillion dollar economy it basically means that
15:09you know the wealth in every indian hands in every indian will be more and we've seen as i said
15:14that
15:15consumption there's a lot of india that still aspires to own gold which will have the real
15:20ways to do it so i think there are a lot of long leads why gold's consumption will has has
15:25an
15:25opportunity to expand on in different sectors and hence the confidence on gold has to be in the
15:31culmination of all these sectors and hence it's no betting and hence i cannot sort of put a number
15:35but the pillars are very strongly in favor of what you mean like a percentage kind of a return that
15:42we can expect if not a figure you mean like you know what can we expect compared to equities we
15:48always see it averaging at around 12 percent 15 percent on an annualized basis what can we expect
15:53on gold well i guess i said i can't put a number but i think i also believe that the
15:57the the numbers
15:58of last year that we saw 75 percent uh perhaps won't repeat and shouldn't get repeated because you know
16:04they impact the essence of gold from a consumption prior perspective in a negative manner because you say
16:10should i bet on it because gold is a structural long-term diversifier and as an investor if you look
16:15at
16:16inclusion of gold from a strategic perspective and you can decide the percentage 5 20 15 depending on
16:22your risk capability but the what it does to your health of your portfolio is long term okay let me
16:29also ask for like you know for from the perspective of a larger view of our audiences who are watching
16:33us
16:34on tv as well two decades ago when an average investor put say one lakh rupees in three baskets one
16:41was gold
16:41one was fixed deposits and the third one was equity so in fixed deposit what we've seen is that one
16:47lakh rupee has grown to about four and a half lakh rupee in equities that one lakh rupee in that
16:53last
16:54two decades period has gone up to say somewhere around 10 to 15 lakh rupee but in gold here's where
17:00you
17:00hold off your breath one lakh rupees has turned out to be 35 lakh rupee in the last two decades
17:07now you tell
17:08me over the next two decades you pointed out to wixit bharat 2047 a goal that we are all looking
17:13forward
17:13to when we are aspiring to be a developed nation how do we see our own personal wealth grow over
17:20the
17:20next two decades if we bank on all these three assets the future of gold is going to be very
17:25interesting and particularly for our nation uh at world gold council we are on this project called the
17:30where we're working alongside with policy makers and futurists as to what could be the role of gold as
17:36we move forward today about one and a half percent of of the gdp comes from gold we employ about
17:42six
17:42million people in the in the sector and we think that if this has to be done uh under this
17:47project
17:47we have a clear roadmap of what gold will do in 2047 and deliver in 2047 with exactly a clear
17:53roadmap by 2040
17:552035 2030 and what we as a gold industry need to start doing today and just to share with you
18:00a few things
18:01of some very interesting elements of what's come out of that we think that if the right
18:05triggers are pressed over the next decade about one third of the gold that we consume in our nation
18:10will come from our own gold with our mining connected to that as you mentioned some 25 to 30 000
18:16tons of
18:17gold that is sitting in the households will come to a productive use as a nation by privatization by
18:23usage of technology we think that india will be the jeweler to the world where we won't be the net
18:27importer
18:28but also a value-added net exporter out there fourthly we think that while we such a large consumer we
18:34have
18:35no say almost no say in the price making of gold we are a price taker and we think if
18:40the right
18:40reforms are done in the banking sector we we will be an important player on price making of gold and
18:46lastly i think we also believe that as a sector as india there'll be gold tourism where you'll be
18:51amplifying you know with some tempers with artisans all this recognition of the phenomenal handcraft that
18:58is there in india will get recognition and we will be the center of gold tourism in the world
19:02you're saying more mining will happen in india and we will have our own goals to look at and import
19:07bills will also fall so yes there's a lot of uh conversations happening by which the
19:12transformation the mining sector will result into one of course amplifying mining also resulting into
19:17attraction reserves sorry in india do we have enough reserves there's an indication that we have a lot of
19:21reserves but i think there is a there's a reformation required in the way by which uh foreign direct
19:26investment come into the sector that's one and we have to re-look at how the scanning has been done
19:31i mean if you look at the the sectoral area china about 20 years back was exactly like us a
19:36net importer
19:36of gold today uh after 20 years china is the largest mining uh producer of gold and i think there's
19:43a lot
19:43of potential if the rise triggers are pressed you will see that we'll be very proudly wearing our own gold
19:48and uh investing on our own bottom line now for all our viewers who are sitting here
19:54gold silver equities what should they buy today you know for say a 10-year 20-year horizon what
20:01should they park their maximum money into right now well i think it's totally your uh your take in
20:05terms of where you sit on risk taking and all of those things but but have gold gold is an
20:09important
20:10diversifier it's a great hedge it's a important perspective of what happening within gold in the
20:15years to come so decide your percentage that is 5 10 15 but get away from a perception that i
20:20own gold
20:21gold but really calculate how much you have it and be a have a scientific approach thank you so much
20:26mr jen for being absolutely a pleasure a huge round of applause ladies and gentlemen i hope this has given
20:30you some clarity as to your own personal investment goals as well thank you
20:33thank you
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