Gold rules God ’ s own country
Gold rules God ’ s own country
Dr B Govindan
“ There is in this kingdom a great quantity of pepper and ginger , and cinnamon and turbot , and of nuts of India , and that ships from the east bring gold and silver and cloth and exchange them for the products of Malabar .” – Marco Polo . Even though Kerala occupies only 3 percent of India ’ s population , it gulps up 20 percent of the country ’ s gold every year . The recent discovery of $ 22 billion or Rs . 90,000 crore worth of gold treasures at the 16th century Sri Padmanabhaswamy temple in Trivandrum is another proof that this craze for gold started much be fore .
Two hundred thousand people are employed in this gold industry at Kerala . In plenty or a little , gold is available in almost all household sometimes as savings , either to be given away as wedding gifts for daughters or to raise cash by gold loans . The biggest of celebrity endorsements in India are not done by cars , soft drinks , mobile phones or cosmetics , but by Kerala ’ s jewellery brands . Glittering stars like Maradona , Amitabh Bachchan , Sushmita Sen , Aishwarya Rai , Mohanlal , Illayaraja , Sania Mirza , Hema Malin and Suriya came down to this God ’ s own country only to endorse jewellery brands .
However high the price of gold in Kerala ,
people will keep buying it . Demand for gold is sluggish due to marriage offseason and nervousness among investors . Even the sharp drop in rupee value against the dollar is not supporting the precious metal . The majority invests in gold , and on an average every household has at least a minimum of 30 gm of gold . The lower- and middle-income groups go for gold because they can liquidate it easily in an emergency . Demand for this yellow metal may not come down very soon in Kerala because both men and women of Kerala consider it as a mascot of pride among their fellow beings .
www . metromartdaily . com July 2013 15