It would probably slide towards the $1,300 mark if the Fed were to signal in itsaccompanying statement this evening that a rate hike is coming closer. According to data from the Census and Statistics Department of the Hong Kong government, China imported 70.9 tons of gold from Hong Kong on a net basis in June. Although this was significantly less than in the very high-volume previous month, it was nearly twice as much as last June – putting net imports back at their March and April level. China imported 413.6 tons of gold net from Hong Kong in the first half of the year, just shy of 12% more than in the same period last year. Thus gold demand in China has picked up again noticeably in the second quarter after getting off to a subdued start to the year. By contrast, Thomson Reuters GFMS claims that Chinese gold demand is weak, saying that latest figures show that it plunged by 25% year-on-year in the second quarter and by 20% year-on-year in the first half year. According to these figures, second-quarter physical gold demand on a global level declined by 22% to 715 tons, which Thomson Reuters GFMS attributes to weak demand in Asia. Having said that, this calculation does not take account of the gold ETFs. If these are factored in, gold demand grew by 7% to 947 tons. According to Thomson Reuters GFMS, the first six months of the year saw record-high inflows of 568 tons into gold ETFs, but interest among ETF investors has abated considerably of late. The gold ETFs tracked by Bloomberg recorded 4.4 tons of outflows yesterday, making that the second day of significant outflows in a row.