Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Gold gained for a fourth day, trading near the highest in almost three weeks, amid lingering military tensions on the Korean peninsula and after China's imports of the precious metal surged almost fivefold. Immediate-delivery gold rose 0.4 percent to $1,393.50 an ounce at 5:30 p.m. in Tokyo after yesterday touching $1,397.50, the highest price since Nov. 12. Bullion has gained 27 percent this year, reaching a record $1,424.60 an ounce on Nov. 9. North Korea, which shelled a South Korean island last month, may be planning an attack on the mainland, the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper reported today. China's gold imports in the first 10 months of this year jumped to 209 tons compared with 45 tons in all of 2009, as concern about rising inflation increased its appeal as a store of value, the Shanghai Gold Exchange said. The nation is the world's largest producer of second-biggest user. "People there need to buy gold to hedge against inflation as the country's tightening monetary policy drives investors from stocks and properties to gold," said Hiroyuki Kikukawa, general manager of research at IDO Securities Co. in Tokyo. China's demand will continue to grow, making the country one of the top importers together with India, he said. Investment demand in China may reach 150 tons this year, up from 105 tons last year, Albert Cheng, managing director of the World Gold Council's Far East department, told a conference in Shanghai today. That's an even larger increase when compared with the 3-4 tons a decade ago, Cheng said. ECB Measures In Europe, investors are shunning the highest-rated bonds after bailouts for Greece and Ireland failed to ease concern that the debt crisis will spread to Spain and Portugal. The European Central Bank's Governing Council will meet today amid speculation it will delay its exit from emergency liquidity measures and may even enhance them. "As the existing measures are unlikely to be sufficient to solve the problems in the periphery, the ECB probably will be forced to increase its programs substantially," said Juergen Michels, chief euro-region economist at Citigroup Inc. in London. Gold assets in exchange-traded products rose to 2,094.48 metric tons yesterday from 2,086.83 tons on Nov. 30, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from 10 providers. Holdings rose to a record 2,104.65 tons on Oct. 14. Silver holdings climbed to 14,851.49 tons from 14,780.04 tons, data shows. Immediate-delivery silver climbed 0.6 percent to $28.6175 an ounce after touching $28.8375 yesterday, the highest level since Nov. 9, when the price reached a 30-year high. Palladium rose as much as 1.9 percent to $748.25 an ounce, the highest level since April 2001, before trading at $746.80. The metal jumped 5 percent yesterday. Platinum advanced 1 percent to $1,703.45 an ounce. Both metals are used mostly to make jewelry and pollution-control devices for cars. --With assistance from Christian Vits in Frankfurt and Feiwen Rong in Beijing. Editors: Ravil Shirodkar, Jarrett Banks

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