A sales assistant puts back a gold Buddha-shaped pendant after showing to a customer at Caibai Ornaments store in Beijing December 2, 2010. [Photo/Agencies]

SHANGHAI- China's demand for investment in gold is expected to reach 150 tonnes in 2010, said an official with the World Gold Council (WGC) on Thursday in Shanghai.

Further, demand for investment in gold in China was likely to accelerate as Chinese buyers regard gold as an effective tool for maintaining and increasing the value of assets, said Albert Cheng, managing director for the Far East office of the WGC, during China's  Fifth Summit on Gold and Precious Metal.

Statistics from the WGC said that gold investments in China reached 120 tonnes in the first three quarters of 2010.

Further, Cheng said that the fourth quarter would be the season-high for gold investment in China. In global terms, the gold consumption for investment purposes would keep rising in its proportion to gold demand.

China's growing gold consumption came from all factors, including jewelry sales, private investment, as well as industrial and central bank demand.

In 2009, gold consumption in China reached 462 tonnes in all sectors. And China's demand for gold has increased an average of 13 percent annually over the past five years, making China the world's second largest consumer market for gold after India.

Even in European countries and the United States, the increasing interest of private investors to possess gold was pushing forward the gold investment demand, as well as supporting the gold market, said Cheng.

In the previous 10 years, the worldwide investment in gold has tripled. By the first half year of 2010, the global gold demand for investment purpose reached 37 percent in all sectors of gold consumption.