The Star Online - Prospects good as gold

PUBLIC Gold Group has plans to expand its gold product business to Brunei, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Its executive chairman Datuk Louis Ng said the group identified Indonesia and Brunei for its new sales and marketing offices to be established, adding that gold seminars were being conducted in the two countries.

“We are now discussing with banks in Vietnam on jointly launching Public Gold products in the country.

“We hope to reach an agreement with the banks to market our gold products through them rather than a sales and marketing office due to the country’s tight laws on gold trading,” he said.

Ng, who was speaking to reporters after the recent soft opening of Public Safe Management Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Public Gold, in Relau, Penang, said the sales and marketing office in Singapore would be ready in three to four months.

On the price of gold, he said it was expected to rise to around US$1,800 (RM5,615) per ounce from the current (yesterday) US$1,662 by the end of the year.

“The world economy is still unstable and there is too much liquidity in the market, which is causing bonds and properties to be flushed with cash thus creating a very unhealthy situation.

“We are expecting more investors to put their funds into gold, which is a safer investment, because of this,” he said.

For the first six months of 2012, sales of Public Gold products grew by about 20% compared to the corresponding period, Ng said.

“We expect our sales to increase by 20% this year compared to 2011.”

On Public Safe Management, he said the safe deposit boxes were for both Public Gold customers and the public to keep their valuables.

“We see a demand in safe deposit boxes as there are not many safe facility providers in the industry to sustain such a great demand, especially one that is reliable.

“We decided to establish a safe facility that is a class above the rest. Our facility complies with international standards and is able to resist fire, floods and break-ins.

“Each safe deposit box comes with a RM10,000 insurance coverage, with an option to increase the coverage to RM100,000 at an affordable fee,” he added.

Ng said there were 4,500 safe deposit boxes in the facility, of which 500 had been taken up.

Meanwhile, Chubb Malaysia Sdn Bhd general manager Ravindran Gengadaran said the Chubb safes at the Public Safe Management facility had been tested with a diamond-tip core drill.

“Even after five hours, the drill still failed to punch a hole into the safe. The test was carried out by an independent core drilling company at our production facility in Subang Jaya, Selangor.”

Sumber: www.publicgoldsarawak.com