Around the industry I have been hearing of wealthy Chinese investors looking to buy up mines or properties with their excess cash. I think this will become a much bigger story in a few years as people will start waking up and see that major hard asset production is dominated by the east. As these countries continue to buy physical metals on the open market the move to own producing mines simply makes sense. These countries know that if a currency crisis comes the countries that will come out ahead will be those that have physical metals as well as those that control future production.
There is something to be said for China entering in an agreement to buy Glencore Xstrata’s copper mine in Peru for $6 billion … in all cash! Can you say diversifying away from the US dollar.