"This year's first-half has been a little challenging. The jewellery demand in terms of volume from January to June (first six months of 2014) as compared to the same period last year is lowered by 14 per cent. But this is a short-term trend," World Gold Council Director Jewellery for India Vipin Sharma told PTI in an exclusive interview.

"In the long run, we see that the fundamentals are very strong. Now that the festive season is starting and the wedding season setting in, we are looking at a demand figure in the region of 850 tonnes to 950 tonnes."And in the last five years the total demand at an average it has been more than 800 tonnes per year which is large and significant quantity. So long term trends continues to be very healthy and robust," Sharma said.

"Going by the last five years' or 10 years' trend, prices have gone up significantly. Earlier the price was around Rs 5000-6000 per 10 gram and last one year it has been close to Rs 30,000. But the consumption volumes have not dropped," Sharma said.

In the very long term the surveys suggested it to be fairly steady. Consumers' attitude appeared to be a very healthy attribute. So the outlook is very steady long-term growth for the market," he said.

While comparing the country's gold market with that of China's, Sharma described India's as a large, consistent and steady consuming market while that of China's as a growing market attributed to its economic growth.

"Both are two biggest consuming markets in the world. I think put together they count for 55-56 per cent of the overall global demand. And both are large and culturally looking at their Asian affinity towards gold there are some underlying similar factors.

PTI