Gold, little changed in Asia, may decline on speculation Chinese policy makers will deliver more interest-rate increases to cope with rising inflation. Immediate-delivery bullion traded at $1,362.02 an ounce at 9:11 a.m. in Singapore after falling as much as 0.2 percent. It closed at $1,361.85 yesterday. Gold for April delivery weakened as much as 0.3 percent to $1,361.30 an ounce. “It is unsurprising that expectations are that China’s inflation will continue its upward trend,” Marc Ground, a commodity analyst with Standard Bank, wrote in a note to clients. “Should the numbers show even greater inflationary pressures, we would expect a knee-jerk sell-off in precious metals on speculation of further monetary tightening.” China last week joined India, Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea in boosting interest rates as Asian policy makers sought to cool the economies leading a global rebound. Chinese consumer prices advanced 5.4 percent in January from a year earlier, the most since July 2008, according to a Bloomberg survey before today’s report. Asian stocks were little changed after yesterday’s biggest jump in more than two months and the Dollar Index, a six- currency gauge of the dollar’s value, was unchanged. Assets in gold-backed exchange traded products stood at 2,020.19 metric tons, snapping six-day decline, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from 10 providers. Holdings have shrunk 4.5 percent from the record 2,114.6 tons on Dec. 20. Platinum for immediate delivery rose 0.4 percent to $1,836.25 an ounce and spot palladium shed 0.2 percent to $833.25 an ounce. Silver was down 0.2 percent at $30.5675 an ounce. To contact the reporter on this story: Kyoungwha Kim in Singapore at kkim19@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Poole at jpoole4@bloomberg.net

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