Indian Silver Market Sees Massive Expansion and Other Silver News

The silver market in India has enjoyed massive growth over the last several years. Demand for the white metal has increased from around 3,000 to 6,000
tons over the last five years, according to Chirag Thakkar, CEO of the Indian bullion company Amrapali Gujarat.

The Silver Institute interviewed Thakkar for the latest edition of Silver News.

Thakker said about 20% of Indian silver demand is industrial, with non-industrial demand for jewelry, silverware and investment making up the other 80%.

Silver, like gold, has an important place in Indian tradition. It is considered auspicious to buy silver or to gift silver during important events like the birth of a child, weddings or during festivals. Indians prefer to buy jewelry, utensils and also artifacts of gods and goddesses in silver.”

According to the Silver Institute’s 2019 silver market trends report, India was projected to be one of the world’s leading silver consumers in 2019. Silver imports into the country reached nearly 225 million ounces last year, over 35% higher than in 2017.

The latest edition of Silver News has more interesting information on India’s silver market from Thakkar, along with some fascinating technological developments utilizing the white metal and other interesting news related to silver.

• Patients who need to take different medications at different times often make errors in timing or even forget to take some doses. Now, a research team working at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), have figured out a way, using silver nanoparticles, that three different drugs can be administered at the same time — but the individual medicines are released at pre-defined intervals.
• Scientists at Nokia Labs in collaboration with researchers at Trinity College, Dublin, have uncovered clues about how silver tarnishes. The findings could improve silver’s reliability in electronic components.
• To help prevent bacteria from entering the body through dental implants, a group of scientists at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Debrecen, Hungary, have tested the efficacy of coating the implants with silver nanoparticles. The results were impressive.
• Advanced Materials Processing, Inc. (AMPI) of Plymouth, California, has patented a process that turns mine waste into a natural fertilizer.
• Israel’s Ben-Gurion University (BGU) of the Negev’s technology transfer company, BGN Technologies, has produced a process that could help investigators discover trace amounts of blood at crime scenes. The chip device uses nanosilver particles to amplify the amount of light reflecting off of luminol (the long-used chemical that ‘lights up’ in the presence of blood) and allows trace amounts of blood to be identified that do not show up with luminol alone.