Gold prices have gone up 9.34 percent since the beginning of this year, reaching $1,324.7 per ounce, on Feb 17, the 21st Century Business Herald reported on Feb 19, while the China Gold Association has announced that China's gold consumption went above 1,000 tons, in 2013, to 1,176.4 tons, up 41.36 percent from the previous year.

The international gold price hit a low of $1,185.1 per ounce, on Dec 19, then started a reverse and went up 1.39 percent, on Valentine's Day, Feb 14.

In tracking the gold surge, SPDR Gold Trust, the world's largest gold ETF, kept buying, with its gold shares increasing 2.01 percent, Jan 30 - Feb 14, reaching 806.35 tons. A UBS report, on Feb 12, said that Gold ETF had continued buying gold shares, amounting to 22,000 ounces, since February, a shift in investor perspective.

Experts differ in their opinions and, in the eyes of some the price of gold is on a rebound from the bottom of 2013 without the basics changing.

A Goldman Sachs report, on Feb 13, suggested that investors remain cautious, keeping gold only as a hedge, and estimating that the price would fall to $1,050 per ounce, in 2014. Meanwhile, Merrill Lynch said it expected gold prices to fall 11 percent to $1,150 an ounce this year.

The decline in the US dollar index (USDX) is another reason gold prices have risen. The USDX fell to 80.097, on Feb 17, a cumulative drop of 1.44 percent in two weeks, with Wang Jinchuan, the chief advisor of a Shenzhen gold investor, saying that the USDX fell because of poor performance of economic indexes and the FED chairman’s talk about maintaining the current monetary policy instead of quitting the QE.

Liu Weiming, of China's CITIC Bank, says that the government's monetary and economic recovery policies and government bond yields will affect the USDX in the short term and suggests giving the USDX credit since the US government tightens its monetary policy.

As the US dollar fell, the Chinese yuan began depreciating recently and was listed as 6.1053 to the dollar, on Feb 17, meaning it had fallen 0.33 percent against the dollar, since Jan 28.

Liu said that, since China does not have a floating exchange rate determined by market forces, the global market may have little influence on its exchange rate and it will enter a bi-directional period as China's economy slows down.

By Peng Juan from China Daily Fujian Bureau, and Zhao Qian

Edited by Roger Bradshaw