GOLD

Driving into Kochi (Cochin) in the state of Kerala from the airport allows one to make a non-scientific survey of Indian priorities based upon the billboards along the way. (Oooops -sorry - that should have read "Being driven into ..." - there is no way that the Whimsical Traveller could possibly contemplate driving himself in India.

Street Scene - Main Road!

Anyway, from the billboards, local priorities would appear to be:

• Gold and gold jewelry
• "Gold Loans"
• Marriage and all its trappings.
• Bollywood

Today's blog will focus upon Gold and Gold Loans, although in practice, these cannot be separated from Marriage or Bollywood.

Gold & Diamonds!

First, some some incredible statistics:

• About $800 billion of gold and gold jewelry is in the possession of Indian individuals.  
• This is about 18,000 tons of gold - just slightly less than the combined gold reserves of the US and Europe (18,900 tons).
• About 65% of Indian gold is help by rural households.
• Kerala has 3% of India's population but accounts for 20% of gold purchases.

These amounts do not include the gold held by Indians in offshore depositories for which there seems to be no reliable estimate, although it is possibly equally important.

....And my all time favorite:

The most amazing recent finding has been the wealth that has been accumulated in the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala.  On order from the Supreme Court, the state is undertaking an inventory of the treasures thatn have been found in five of six vaults under the temple. 

 Padmanabhaswamy Temple

The value of the treasures in the first five vaults exceeds $22 billion, including this gold statue that weighs 30 kilos.

Gold Statue from Padmanabhaswamy Temple

Obviously the Vatican is going to have to step up its fund-raising if it is not to appear as a poor relative.

The related subject on billboards was Gold Loans.

There are many financial institutions in Kerala that focus on Gold Loans.  These seem to be ponsified pawnbrokers who will lend up to 50-60% of the value of the weight of gold jewelry with very little paperwork.  As can be seen from this billboard, they claim to take only 3 minutes to make a loan.  Ironically, the principal purpose for which people in Kerala take out a gold loan is to make purchases of gold and gold jewelry!!!