What If Rich Indians Sold Just 100 Grams Of Gold? Firoz Aziz Explains Massive Impact | Business News

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:10]Welcome back. You're still tuned in to ET Now, and as promised, let's put the spotlight on a very interesting conversation on gold. India spends billions of dollars every year importing gold, and our next guest believes even small action by affluent Indian families can make a meaningful difference. In a thought-provoking note, he argues that if just 13,800 families monetize around 100 g of idle gold each, it could collectively offset nearly 1% of India's annual gold import requirement. The note is not just about selling emotional jewelry, but it's about rethinking excess holdings in bars, coins, ETFs, and gold funds, while also highlighting how productive capital allocation can potentially create greater long-term wealth. To discuss this further, we are now joined by Mr. Firoz Aziz, joint CEO at Anand Rathi Wealth. Firoz, thank you for taking your time out and joining us here on ET Now. And first up, take us through the note, the key conclusion that you're drawing from this particular note, and why you believe that this aligns with India's larger national and patriotic interest.

[00:01:18]Uh hi Ashisha.

[00:01:20]Uh good afternoon. Uh see, like you rightly pointed out, we did some math, back of the envelope math, says the problem is not as big that we can't solve it.

[00:01:32]Uh so, if you look at the total household gold which we have is upwards of 4 trillion dollars, which if you if you measure in rupees, it's 4 crore crores of gold in Indian households.

[00:01:46]Uh we have been importing 35 billion, 45, then 58, and now 75 billion dollars of gold each year, right? Now, if you look at what the Prime Minister has submitted saying that why don't you avoid buying gold for a year? Let's assume the gold demand comes back to normal say and that means $40 billion of gold import. 1% of that is close to about 3,500 to 4,000 crores.

[00:02:12]So, we said we are a group of professionals which has 403 relationship managers. Anand Rathi is one single company in the wealth management business, not a small fry in the big ocean of financial services industry. I have as a company 13,800 families approximately.

[00:02:30]If all of them sold 100 g of gold which implies about 15 to 16 lakh rupees per family, that's not too much.

[00:02:37]Then we total it up to close to about 2,500 3,000 crores of of total sale of gold. Now, when you sell gold or you sell an ETF, gold comes out of the walls and goes to those people who actually want to make jewelry. So, we we the need for us to import gold suddenly comes down because there's more gold in circulation.

[00:02:58]Now, of course quite a few people will be upset with me and I saw I did not come in the interview people were upset saying that you are your government will not get any better.

[00:03:06]So, why should government not think of it? Why can't corporates contribute 1% of the profit? I am just asking people to sell 2-3% of their gold. Sell, not gift.

[00:03:17]And anyways, gold is at peak price after Modi has spoken Modi ji has spoken it's fallen by 7%. Today gold if you sell, you're not going to be at a loss substantively anyway. As a as a person, I would say that we all have to first ask ourselves what we can do for the country and then the then you go and submit to the government then you have a case saying that capital gain at 30 days that's the key abhiyan we are trying to do and we we are asking clients to give us evidence of their sale which they are willingly and we'll try and put momentum to it and then get to these numbers hopefully with God's grace.

[00:03:53]Very, very interesting, Firoz. I'm sure no one has done this math and probably put that into perspective. But what will the broader economic impact be if at all we were to do this and if families move money out of idle gold, how will it benefit the economy if you can take us through that math, too?

[00:04:12]Yes, sure.

[00:04:13]See, when you when you not today, the problem like last year, FIIs exited about 1 lakh 68,000 crores.

[00:04:22]That is close to about 17-18 billion dollars in the full year and that was the worst year of outflow.

[00:04:30]Your capital account, which is where your dollars your your deficits are there, current account deficits are there.

[00:04:37]If you look at the FII flow, it's got so much attention, outflow has got so much attention for the full FY26 and this year also they've sold, but that's still half of what gold imports were or even for last year it was 1/4 of what gold imports were. So, if you actually make sure that we are able to bring gold import to zero, then we are automatically offsetting all FIIs flows.

[00:05:02]That's what I do mean for this year and that's something which has got so much national attention, FII flow. 1 lakh 68,000 crores, 17 billion dollars. If all of us sell 2 3 4% of our gold on the name of profit booking. Look at the equity and profit booking and you see gold maybe rally we can have the profit booking this kind of 3 4% So, coming back, what will it impact? I think the currency stability will have a reasonable impact if we can achieve this as a country, one. Second, all the FII outflows 2026 has been one of the largest outflows. You know, I'm sure you know.

[00:05:39]Almost 2 lakh crores of outflows in about 40 days is what FIIs did in the month of March-April.

[00:05:45]So, that implies that 20 billion, 22 billion dollars. So, that's So, this year also we can offset the entire FIA outflow if you could bring gold imports down to zero. And it's not very difficult and I think if you look at the gold returns on a 10-year basis, they are not so heartening.

[00:06:05]And if I if you use AI, it will tell you what is the rolling return of gold and it's just about 8 and 1/2% in rupee terms on a 10-year basis. And uh, there are several assets which can deliver that. Even a Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana would have delivered 8.25% [clears throat] practically post tax for all the girls, young ones in India.

[00:06:25]Right. Firoz, thank you for taking your time out and joining us here on ET Now and putting that into perspective for us and what we as Indians can probably do.

[00:06:33]Thank you for taking your time out and joining us here today.

[00:06:37]Shifting focus then, we have uh, China