Akshaya Trihiya Gold Festival

India is the world’s largest consumer of gold. Every single year, the country imports over 700 tons of gold, as well as 3,000 tons of silver. Indians are in a frenzy for gold and silver purchases today during an important Hindu festival involving precious metals, called Akshaya Trihiya. The word Akshaya means “that which never diminishes”, because of the festival’s meaning, many people in India buy tons of gold and precious metal on this day with the belief that anything bought on this day will bring luck and also success. Now with the recent record breaking prices of gold, the Indian Festival is gearing up for what is predicted to be one of the highest selling years yet.

One of the bigger merchants of Indian gold during the festival is the Rudra center, which carries a tiny “Shree Yantra” gold coin only a single mm in thickness. The Shree Yantra may be me small, but at 22 karots, it fetches a price of 27,500 RS, or $650,000 US Dollars.

This is a great time for Indians to buy gold because of the high value of gold in the market. But not only is the Akshaya giving Indians a large access to gold at high value, but it is also keeping the value of gold worldwide at a high value. Even the NSE and BSE markets have extended gold trading for ETFs(exchange traded funds) in Gold for Akshaya.

It’s easy to see that the traditional Indian holiday has a huge impact on not only the people of India, but on gold itself and the value of gold worldwide.