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During this interview by Vanessa Collette I express my view that China should have reported official gold holdings of 3,000 reflecting domestic production of about 2,000 tonnes since 2009 for which the Chinese central bank is supposed to be the official buyer. Instead, the 1,054 tonnes last reported in 2009 increased by only 631 tonnes, which raises the question of where the rest of the domestic production ended up, especially in view that China is perceived as a net gold importer in recent years. Aside from having resold it to Chinese citizens, I speculate that perhaps the domestically produced gold has been shunted into state-owned enterprises whose holdings do not count as part of official reserves. I further suggest that the truth of Chinese disclosures is always subordinated to a self-serving agenda, which means it is hardly in China's interest to support the gold bug narrative. I also offer the view that Chinese gold production is likely to decline if the environmental awakening in China gains traction. We also chat about scandium, which I point out is the perfect metals bear market story that is controlled by two juniors, Scandium International Mining Corp (a KRO Absolute Spec Value Buy recommendation), and Robert Friedland's CleanTeQ Holdings (CLQ-ASX). Vanessa also asked why we are not seeing more M&A activity in the junior space during this capitulation washout, to which I respond that the juniors are already about as low as they can go without disappearing entirely, and that the capitulation is happening at the level of producers who are somewhat distracted by the problem of their existing mines being marginalized by deflating metal prices.
