The Human Cost of Gold | National Geographic Magazine: Auspicious Gold Buying Day | Akshaya Tritiya | Chennai, India

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Auspicious Gold Buying Day | Akshaya Tritiya | Chennai, India

The lure of gold dominates a Chennai street in September, just before India’s wedding season, when jewelry sales soar. India is the top gold consumer, its citizens buying as much for investment as adornment.

In India jewelry is valued by weight and purity and then “making charges” are added on.  But making charges are very low… 3 to 4 percent in many cases. The real surge comes from the country’s burgeoning middle class, which has tripled in size over the past 20 years, to 300 million people.