In Hong Kong when you buy gold and take it out of the exchange warehouses it is called a withdrawal.

In other words, you do something with your bullion besides letting it sit around in some exchange warehouse to be passed around and hypothecated 230 times.

Recently, at the Hong Kong Comex Metals Exchange 19.17 tonnes of .999 gold kilobars were taken out.

That is about 616,329 troy ounces.  Taken out by buyers in a single day.  That is a new record for the young exchange.

I hear they have quite a few over-the-counter dealers now, whose mission it is to facilitate the off take of physical bullion.

Maybe that is why the Comex Hong Kong exchange trading volumes are so low, but the physical off take levels are so high.  They are serious about their business.

Not bad but still not as much as Shanghai does, overall.  See the second chart.

It is almost like the New York - London float of unencumbered gold bullion available for delivery is— melting away.