CHINA'S need for gold imports is expected to fall as the country is discovering domestic reserves rapidly as well as on rising output of the metal, Sun Zhaoxue, general manager of China National Gold Corp, said yesterday.

"China's gold output has been gradually rising and will continue to do so in the coming year, so imports could start to fall accordingly," Sun told a conference in Tianjin yesterday.

China imports about 100 tons of gold each year, he said.

In the first eight months of this year, China's gold production rose 8.85 percent to 217.953 tons from the same period of 2009.

As China is finding new gold reserves faster than it is producing the precious metal, there is no danger of the country exhausting supplies, Sun said.

China is already the world's second-biggest gold consumer after India, and demand continues to rise steadily on a growing domestic economy.

Despite the high prices, consumers in China have continued to buy gold and the World Gold Council has suggested they are becoming used to higher gold prices.

Gold hit a record US$1,403 an ounce earlier this month. The surge reflected a slump in the US dollar on investor concerns of a double-dip recession in the United States.