An employee of a gold shop displays gold ornaments in Qingzhou, East China's Shandong Province, on July 29, 2024. The price of gold ornaments stood at 705 yuan ($97.1) per gram on the day. In the first half of the year, affected by a strong rise in gold prices, China's gold consumption totaled 523.753 tons, down 5.61 percent year-on-year, according to statistics from the China Gold Association. Photo: VCG