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Whenever forecasts say that the economy will suffer in the future, it is gold or the dollar that attracts attention.

These are what we commonly call safe assets, but recently gold has been on the rise.



Reporter Kim Jung-woo reports.



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A gold exchange in Seoul where you can buy and sell gold directly.



Currently, the price of gold is around 77,000 won per gram, up nearly 10% from six months ago.



The number of people who want to buy gold has increased significantly in anticipation that the price of gold will rise further in the future.



[Song Jong-gil/CEO of Korea Gold Exchange: Customers tend to increase during the year-end and New Year holidays.

Before that, it was a bit quiet.

When there is a prospect that gold prices will rise or when public opinion is formed, the demand for gold increases.]



International gold prices are also fluctuating.



It traded at $1,846 per ounce, its highest level in six months.



It is also predicted that it will exceed $ 2,100 soon.



Gold prices are rising as concerns grow that the value of assets such as real estate, stocks, and virtual currencies will drop significantly as it becomes clear that the economy will not be good this year.



The fact that the value of the dollar, another safe asset, rose so much last year that it became less attractive as an investment also contributed to the rise in gold prices.



In fact, institutions and foreign investors who withdrew from the country's gold trading market at the end of last year, when the value of the dollar soared, are recently investing in gold again.



[Lee Jeong-hwan/Professor, Department of Economics and Finance, Hanyang University: It has become this situation where the dollar is not as strong as before.

As a result, (dollar) demand decreases, and if this demand eventually moves within safe assets, demand for gold increases.]



Central banks of each country are also starting to collect gold.



The net purchase of gold by world central banks and financial companies over the past nine months was a whopping 673 tons, the largest since 1967.



(Video editing: Choi Eun-jin, VJ: Park Hyun-woo)