The nation's top retailer of gold ingots said Thursday it logged a 3.17-fold surge in sales in the January-June period from a year earlier on a quantitative basis.
Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo attributed the sharp increase to high levels of "cashability" during the period, meaning that gold was easily exchanged for cash, allied to the international marketability of gold ingots.
"Gold ingots provide both high levels of cashability and international marketability at a time when the stock market is in the doldrums and interest rates are at ultra-low levels," an official of the firm explained.
Purchasers stepped forward from across the social spectrum, with young people of both sexes joining their elderly counterparts to buy gold, the official said.
The ingot purchases conducted during the period ranged from 1 kg per transaction to several tens of kilograms, the official added.
Gold ingot sales initially gained momentum in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, which bludgeoned stock markets in the U.S. and elsewhere.
In February, gold sales logged an 8.5-fold increase from the previous year as people moved their money from bank savings accounts.
These clients were striving to shield their assets from any banking instability feared to arise from the April 1 abolition of the full-refund guarantee on time deposits in the event of a bank failure.