GOLD demand in China may sparkle as an initial batch of 20 banks participated in trading bullion via the Shanghai Gold Exchange's newly-launched interbank platform yesterday.

The banks were allowed by the Shanghai bourse, China's biggest spot gold market, to trade bullion among themselves from yesterday.

The transactions involving bilateral price inquiry are performed on the China Foreign Exchange Trade System, and cleared and settled through the gold exchange. The gold bourse charges both parties 0.04 percent of the traded amount, said a statement on its website.

One of the first banks to trade yesterday was the Bank of Communications, China's fifth-biggest lender, when it completed a spot transaction worth a principal amount of 20 million yuan (US$3.2 million) with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the biggest bank in the world.

"Interbank gold trading will promote the development of the domestic gold market, and gradually form a multi-layer gold market trading system," Tu Hong, general manager of the financial markets department at BoCom, said yesterday.

"We hope the alliance between the Shanghai Gold Exchange and the China Foreign Exchange Trading Center will promote a diversified product line that covers gold forwards and swaps in the future," Tu said.

Aside from the major Chinese banks, the other participants mentioned in the bourse?s statement include four subsidiaries of foreign banks ? HSBC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, ANZ Bank and United Overseas Bank.

[SOURCE]
Isn't it ironic that you can have a gold or silver denominated account in Mainland China--complete with debit card that speaks and converts freely back and forth, to and from yuan--but not in the so-called land of the free and the home of the brave?

Even Peter Schiff's international hard-money Visa-branded bullion debit card, backed by gold and/or silver, allows everyone but US citizens to participate. Why? Because our government made it so, that's why, with deliberate barriers to entry.

U.S. security laws have become so intrusive, burdensome, and expensive to comply with, that it made it difficult for Schiff to offer the services in the U.S. So, Schiff opened his bank offshore, in St. Vincents and the Grenadines. It operates outside the jurisdiction of U.S. security regulations, and does not accept accounts from American citizens or residents.
So screw us and our thoughts of owning gold and silver for circulation. For that kind of liberty you'll have to go climb outside the USSA Wall, to somewhere else -- perhaps Capitalist China.