Australia’s largest mint sees surge in gold, silver sales

The Perth Mint, Australia’s largest, reported a jump in gold and silver sales last month as demand for havens surged amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The mint, which has been in business for more than a century, said gold coin and minted bar sales totaled 93,775 ounces in March, the highest since April 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Silver sales almost tripled to 1.74 million ounces from 605,634 ounces in February.

The mint’s gold kilobars were sold out last week due to the surge in demand amid a squeeze in the market, according to Chief Executive Officer Richard Hayes. It has reopened the kilobar manufacturing facility to ensure additional stock is available, and separately has diverted production to its popular 1 ounce Silver Kangaroo coin to meet a backlog of orders, he said last week.

(By Ranjeetha Pakiam)