By Arpan Mukherjee Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WELLINGTON (Dow Jones)--Gold moved higher in Asia Monday on the back of safe-haven inflows, as disappointment over the lack of progress on euro zone's debt problems weighed on investor sentiment for other base metals and equities. At 0550 GMT, spot gold was at $1,821.30 a troy ounce, $8.80 higher than Friday's late New York price. Dollar strength tempered gold's rise. The euro was at $1.3658 compared with $1.3802 late Friday in New York. Traders and analysts said the market will likely be choppy ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve's two-day meeting on interest rates Tuesday after European Union finance ministers failed to announce any significant measures for Greek debt at a weekend meeting in Poland. A Hong-Kong-based trader said "disappointment" about the Greek debt situation is supporting gold, but there is little physical buying in Asia with Japan's markets shut due to a public holiday. The trader put gold's initial resistance at $1,850/oz, then $1,880/oz and said profit-taking could push the prices to around $1,750/oz in the near term. The Greek government held an emergency cabinet meeting Sunday to plan new measures to bring its budget deficit under control. The ruling Socialist Party remains under enormous pressure curtail its austerity program, with some fearing that firings of tens of thousands of public workers could trigger public protests and new elections. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition suffered a blow in a regional election, further weakening sentiment. Ben Potter, a strategist at IG Markets, said he doesn't see any catalyst to propel gold to new records in the short term, but gold will remain fairly well supported and there could be quite strong demand for the metal if prices fall to $1,750/oz. Morgan Stanley noted that gold has downside support due to an extended period of negative real interest rates and on the back of the protracted European sovereign debt crisis. The bank contrasted gold's situation with silver and platinum group metals, which have industrial uses and therefore are subject to downside risk Barclays Capital said silver continued to track gold and expected the metal's price trajectory to remain volatile. Spot silver was at $40.54/oz, down 12 cents, while palladium was $4.57 lower at $725.43/oz and platinum was $2.75 higher at $1,811.75/oz, from its previous close. BarCap said price momentum for PGMs will likely be limited due to concerns about demand amid weak economic growth, but added that supply disruptions due to biannual wage negotiations continue to lurk in the background. -By Arpan Mukherjee, Dow Jones Newswires; 64-4-471-5990; arpan.mukherjee@dowjones.com

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