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Dubai gold imports down 2.1 per cent

DUBAI - Dubai's second-quarter gold imports fell 2.1 per cent to 143 tonnes, compared with a year ago, and exports plummeted 15.8 per cent to 64 tonnes, figures from the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) showed on Saturday.

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The emirate's total gold imports for the first half of 2008 were down 4.7 per cent, at 265 tonnes. Total exports during the same period rose 26.1 per cent to 179 tonnes, according to figures in a DMCC statement.

Gold trade through Dubai reached $6.01 billion in the first quarter of the year, up 26.3 per cent from the same period in 2007, while in the first half of the year, trade in the precious metal surged 48 per cent to $13.07 billion from the same period a year earlier, the DMCC said.

'Demand for gold has been resilient to global market conditions,' Ian MacDonald, DMCC's executive director for gold and precious metals, said in the statement.

'The sharp rise in prices seen earlier this year has been a prime driver in improving export volumes, and has boosted the role of gold as an inflation-hedging instrument,' he said, in an apparent reference to the six-month performance.

Spot gold powered to a record of $1,030.80 an ounce on March 17 on record-high crude oil, fears of inflation and expectations of more rate cuts in the United States, making the metal more attractive as an alternative investment.

It traded around $855 an ounce in Europe on Friday.

Gold is seen as a safe-haven metal and as a hedge against inflation. The metal is also influenced by oil, currency moves, and generally trades in the opposite direction to the dollar.

Dubai is a long-established market for gold bullion and wholesale and retail jewellery, where the trade is fuelled by strong demand from the Arab world and India, the world's top gold market.

Last year, the Gulf commercial hub's gold imports reached 559 tonnes on investors' appetite for the precious metal, while exports amounted to 287 tonnes.