China: India’s neighboring country China has hit a big jackpot. Actually, China has discovered its first deposit of gold under the sea. This huge deposit of gold has been discovered off the coast of Laizhou in Shandong province. With this, the gold reserves near Laizhou have now increased to more than 3900 tonnes (137.57 million ounces), which is about 26 percent of the total gold reserve of the country. China has now come on top in terms of both gold reserves and its production.
Through a press conference, the government of Yantai Province explained its achievements during the current five-year plan and also mentioned its next plan. Certainly, finding this gold reserve is a big success for China because China has been continuously engaged in the work of locating precious metals for the last few years. However, it has not been disclosed yet how big this gold reserve is, but it is expected to be much larger than earlier estimates.
Gold is everywhere in China
Just last month i.e. in November, China discovered low-grade gold deposits of more than 1,444.49 tonnes in the north-eastern province of Liaoning. It was described as the largest gold deposit found since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. In addition, in November, gold reserves of more than 1,000 tons were also discovered in the Kunlun Mountains near the western border of the Uyghur Autonomous Region near Xinjiang.
Earlier, in November 2023, Shandong province said it had discovered nearly a quarter of China’s total gold reserves, with more than 3,500 tonnes said to have been found on the Jiaodong Peninsula. The Jiaodong Peninsula is the third largest gold mining belt in the world. It is said that one-fourth of China’s total gold reserve is present here.
China is the largest producer of gold
According to China Gold Association, China ranks first in the world in terms of gold production. Last year, 377 tonnes of gold was produced here. However, despite being ahead in production, China is still behind countries like South Africa, Australia and Russia in terms of gold reserves. To bridge this gap, China is continuously accelerating its efforts. Geologists are continuously moving towards detecting more and more precious metals with the help of artificial intelligence, high-powered ground-penetrating radar and satellites that detect minerals.
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