The price of platinum has risen recently, mainly due to an increase in demand from such fast-growing nations as China for use in jewelry and industry.
Investors, expecting industrial demand to increase further, have pushed the price even higher.
Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo K.K. says the metal's market price stands at about 5,000 yen per gram, near the average annual price record of 5,409 yen from 2008. A standard platinum wedding ring at Ginza Tanaka jewelry store sells for about 50,000 yen, double the price from May 2005.
One reason behind the price increase is industrial demand in emerging nations such as China, an industry official said. Platinum is most notably used as a catalyst to purify auto exhaust and to preserve the clarity of liquid crystal TVs.
The increasing popularity of the precious metal as jewelry has also pushed up the price.
Lately, more brides in China are wearing Western-style white wedding dresses instead of traditional red Chinese-style dresses. These women tend to choose platinum wedding rings because they think the metal goes well with a white dress.
Platinum demand in China in 2009 was about 63 tons, triple the figure from 1998 and about one-third of global demand. Fifty-four tons, or 90 percent, of platinum used by China was for jewelry.
In Japan, white gold, which is 20 percent to 40 percent cheaper than platinum, has been selling well recently, and many jewelry stores do not stock platinum pieces, except for a few wedding rings.
About 80 percent of global platinum went to Japan in the early 1990s, when the nation was experiencing a bubble economy. Recently, demand has been about 20 percent of its peak after a period of prolonged deflation.
