What Is the Shanghai Gold Exchange?
The Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) is a major exchange for gold and silver trading in China. It was established in 2002 and is supervised by the People's Bank of China.
The SGE lists products with different terms, including spot and deferred-delivery contracts. The exchange as a whole should therefore not be described as a plain spot market, nor should the volume traded on it be interpreted as always being delivered to end consumers.
This site uses SGE Au9999 for gold and Ag(T+D) for silver observations. Contract terms and trading hours can change, so specific specifications should be checked against the SGE's official product pages and trading rules.
Contracts Used in This Site's Comparison
For gold, this site uses an observation associated with SGE Au99.99, shown as Au9999 in the site's data. SGE describes Au99.99 as a physical contract quoted in yuan per gram.
The current SGE product rules list a trading unit of 10 grams per lot. The deliverable product is a standard 1-kilogram gold ingot with the required fineness. The trading unit and the weight of the deliverable bar are therefore not the same thing.
For silver, this site uses Ag(T+D). SGE classifies it as a deferred-delivery margin contract quoted in yuan per kilogram. The current product page lists a trading unit of 1 kilogram per lot, while the deliverable product is a standard 15-kilogram silver ingot meeting the applicable fineness requirement.
Contract specifications, margin ratios, price limits, fees and trading hours can change. Current values should be checked through SGE announcements and product pages.
The Chinese Market and SGE Data
China's gold market includes jewelry, bar and coin investment, industrial use, and institutional trading. Consumption and demand statistics vary in scope by source, so the reference period and definition of the underlying report should be checked alongside any number.
SGE prices and delivery data are useful reference points for observing the Chinese market, but trading volume and delivery totals are not the same as net new purchases by end consumers. They can include intra-exchange movement, re-trading, and institutional activity.
Holidays and long weekends may affect market activity, but a price difference in any specific period cannot be attributed to holiday demand alone.
How to Read the SGE Price Difference
The SGE premium shown by this site is the percentage difference between an SGE observation converted to USD per troy ounce and the site's USD spot benchmark.
A positive value means that the converted SGE observation was above the comparison benchmark. A negative value means that it was below. A positive value does not prove strong Chinese demand, and a negative value does not establish weak demand or excess supply.
Exchange rates, observation times, market closures, contract terms, import rules and data sources can all affect the result. Identifying a cause would require additional evidence such as volume, imports, inventories and policy data.
A value marked "Estimated" is not a direct SGE observation. The site excludes it from premium rankings and historical aggregation, and it should not be interpreted as an observed Chinese-market premium.
Trading Hours and Access
SGE product pages publish day and night trading hours for individual contracts. The day session may contain separate morning and afternoon periods, and schedules can differ by product, holiday or exchange notice. Readers should check the current page for Au99.99 or Ag(T+D) rather than applying one schedule to every SGE product.
Participation depends on membership, customer eligibility and the relevant trading channel. The SGE International Board began operating in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone in 2014 to provide an access framework for eligible international participants.
This article does not infer broader currency or price-policy objectives from the existence of the International Board.
Key points
- SGE lists several gold and silver contracts with different trading and delivery terms.
- This site uses recent Au9999 and Ag(T+D) observations for its comparisons.
- An SGE price difference is not a direct measure of demand and cannot be explained by a single cause.
- "Estimated" values are not direct SGE observations and are excluded from aggregated statistics.
- Current contract specifications and trading hours should be confirmed with the SGE's own materials.
Sources
Institution names and page titles current as of September 2026.
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