A salesman arranges gold bangles inside a jewellery showroom during a major gold-buying festival, in Mumbai, India, in May, 2019. The total value of China's gold imports from Canada is much higher than Canadian figures suggest.Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters
Gold bullion from Canada makes up a far greater portion of Chinese gold imports than is generally understood outside of China, according to data from the Asian country’s customs agency that has drawn little notice outside of professional circles here.
The total value of these imports, according to figures from China Customs, is more than 10 times higher than Canadian export statistics suggest – a discrepancy that hints at the full extent of the role trade between the two countries plays in the global gold market. In China’s eyes, gold is its No. 1 import from Canada by value, rather than the canola and coal shipments Canada records as its top exports.
The difference is not a result of an accounting lapse on either country’s part. Instead, it arises from a difference in perspective. Canada is unable to track where its exports end up if they change hands multiple times on their way to their ultimate buyer. But China Customs can and does require importers to track where their products originate.
This means that when Canada sells gold to bullion markets in London and New York, those exports are counted here as sales to Britain and the United States. But when China buys that same Canadian gold from those same markets, it considers the imports to be from Canada.
As a result, Statistics Canada says direct exports of unwrought gold – such as bars or bullion – to China and Hong Kong in 2024 amounted to $1.9-billion.
But the figures from China Customs say that China imported dramatically more from Canada: $25-billion in that same category of goods.
Although the Chinese figures are public, they are not routinely scrutinized in Canada. The Royal Canadian Mint and the Mining Association of Canada were both unable to offer insight into China’s gold import statistics.
Unlike canola or petroleum or coal, gold isn’t generally consumed or destroyed. Aside from some industrial applications, the world’s mined gold supply simply increases over time. According to the World Gold Council, a global industry association, the “above ground” stock of gold was 216,265 tonnes at the end of 2024.
China, however, has started amassing significant gold holdings, and gold investors appear to be unloading their supplies of Canadian bullion in response. The country’s central bank holdings of gold hit 2,292 tonnes in the first quarter of 2025, up substantially from 1,800 tonnes in the same period in 2016.
The soaring price of gold, up more than 25 per cent in 2025 alone, is boosting the share prices of Canadian gold mining companies and by extension, the benchmark S&P/TSX Composite Index in Canada, which has increased more than 11 per cent this year, even as tariffs and trade uncertainty have weighed on the country’s economy.
Philippe Rheault, director of the University of Alberta’s China Institute, said China has been buying the precious metal as a hedge both against rising global uncertainty and its overreliance on the U.S. dollar.
“They’ve got just a voracious appetite for gold,” said Mr. Rheault, who recently retired from Canada’s foreign service after two decades in China.
Figures from China Customs show that gold, in fact, has topped the import list as the top commodity from Canada not only in 2024 but also 2022, 2019, 2018 and 2015.
Mr. Rheault, who most recently served as Canada‘s consul general for south China until 2023, said he wouldn’t be surprised if China was understating the import data for gold originating in Canada.
He said as far as he can tell, Canadian gold is mostly going to China via Hong Kong, but also via Switzerland, Britain and the United States.
Joseph Cavatoni, a senior strategist at the World Gold Council, said a piece of Canadian bullion might pass through the hands of four or five people between the time it started at the Royal Canadian Mint and made its way into the hands of the People’s Bank of China.
“China has been at the top of the list in terms of central banks buying gold over the last 15 years in terms of the trend that we’ve seen,” Mr. Cavatoni said.
He said China‘s central bank has been removing U.S. dollars or assets based on the U.S. dollar or euro from its holdings and substituting these with commodities such as gold.
“There are homegrown concerns around inflation, the property market hasn’t done very well, the economic situation around corporate growth has been bleak,” Mr. Cavatoni said of China. “Equities have been up and down. Bond markets are challenged, and their renminbi is under pressure, so they’re diversifying their own reserves.”
Pierre Gratton, president and chief executive of the Mining Association of Canada, wasn’t able to comment on the Chinese trade figures. But he said Canada should consider taking a page from China.
“Given the incredible rise in gold’s value, China once again appears to be outmaneuvering the West, much as it has with other mineral commodities. It’s ironic and unfortunate that Canada, as a major gold producer, isn’t itself increasing its gold holdings in these turbulent times.”