The price of gold has gone down in the Indian market but this has not had any impact on the gold price in Bhutan. This, according to the jewellery shop owners in Thimphu, is due to the Rupee problem. How?
They have run short of stock and they cannot buy fresh stock. Most of the gold business is done with India.
The gold price dropped by 13.8 percent in India last month. But the price of gold has not changed for the last eight months in Bhutan. An ounce or what is locally known as tola of gold costs Nu. 36,000.
Manilal jewelry shop is one of the oldest jewelry shops in Thimphu. According to the owner, Ram Kumar Barailey, business has gone down drastically. The shop used to keep several grams of gold as reserve but today it does not have any gold reserves.
“We are not able to buy gold from India. If we have gold there is no dearth of customers. As we don’t have gold and cannot buy it from India because of rupee shortage, we don’t have customers,” he added.
According to other jewellery shop owners, the demand for gold has never gone down even when the price increased. They said they continue to get orders for gold or gold jewellery but they cannot provide it.
“We cannot provide gold to our customers even though the demand is very high. We used to go to Kalimpong to buy gold and do some jewelry designing but now it’s impossible for us to go there because of the rupee problem,” said Dhan Badhur Barailey, another Jewelry shop owner.
While gold jewellery are readily available in the market, to buy gold one has to wait a minimum of one week.
