Demand for gold around the world has increased by 10 percent in the past year.
This emerges from figures presented by the industry organization World Gold Council (WGC) on Thursday.
"It's been a good year for gold," said analyst Louise Street, although the price of gold actually declined slightly in dollar terms from January through December.
However, the annual average price was higher than in the previous year.
Christian Siedenbiedel
Editor in Business.
Follow I follow
The total demand increased from 3658 to 4021 tons.
More gold was used again than in the previous crisis year, especially for jewelry production, and demand rose by 67 percent to 2,220 tons.
The use of gold in other industries, such as circuits in laptops and smartphones, rose by 9 percent to 330 tons.
Demand for bars and coins increased significantly, by 31 percent to 1,180 tons.
And that despite the fact that a lot of physical gold was ordered at times in 2020.
Germany's private investors remain loyal to gold
The German private investors played an important role again, as Street said.
In Germany, the demand for gold bars and coins grew by 3 percent to 161 tons.
On the other hand, holdings in gold ETFs, which had grown strongly in the previous year, declined globally last year.
There were outflows of 173 tons, in the previous year the inflows were 874 tons.
The central banks have also bought a lot of gold again;
partly for different motives, Street said, but mostly to diversify their currency reserves.
Demand in this sector rose by 82 percent to 463 tons.
The outflow from ETFs meant that overall gold demand for investment reasons fell by 43 percent to 1007 tons.
For the current year, the Council sees a similar dynamic for gold demand as last year.
The trend towards rising interest rates is slowing down demand, and inflation is driving it.
Jewelery manufacturing and industry are likely to demand more gold again.