Tips for South Asians: Buying Gold in Dubai, UAE.

UAE is famous for her gold markets. Collections of the gold souks are really mind blowing. If you spend little time and do some homework then you can end up doing good shopping.

I went to UAE and stayed there in April and May 2011 for implementation of our Health Care ERP. During the tour I visited some of the most interesting parts of Dubai, Sharjah and Ajman.

Me in front of world`s biggest gold ring(Certified by Guinness Book of the World Records) in Gold Souk, Dubai.

Here I am sharing some tips if you are planning to visit Dubai to buy some gold.

Buying Gold for the shoppers from Indian Sub-Continent (Specially those from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal etc) can be little confusing as we are used to of measuring gold in ‘Vori’, ‘Tola’ etc. I have never had any idea about them but when I needed to compare the price I had to learn what they are.

Buying gold in Dubai is really profitable because the gold is pure. It is at least 10% cheaper than the rate in Bangladesh. You can find variety and designs that is almost impossible to find anywhere in the sub-continent. Shoppers will find beautiful designs not only from the European designers but also from south-India, Kolkata, China, South-East Asia and of course different countries of Arab. If you are in a bit of tough budgeting, never even think about taking your girlfriend or wife there.

• Gold markets are called Gold Souk. Because Souk is the Arabic of Market!
• There are number of gold souks in Dubai and one big one in Sharjah. But the biggest gold souk is in Deira, Dubai. It is also the cheapest.
• They sell gold in grams. Mind it 11.1 grams= 1 Vari (Vori).
• There are different types of golds such as 24k, 22k, 18k etc.
• You can hardly find ornaments of 24k gold. Most of the stores sell 24k gold only in Biskits that you can take home with you and then make whatever you want to.
• The price remains same for all types of gold. However, making-cost differs. And this is where you can do hard bargaining.
• You can pre-determine the price by checking online like in the following links: here and here and etc.
• For example today I found that price of 22carat gold is AED 170.75. That means 1 Vori would be AED (170.75*11.1) = AED 1895.325 or (1895.325*20.25)= 38380 BDT.
• This is relatively very cheap as now-a-days gold is almost BDT 43000 per vori in Bangladesh and there is no guarantee of pureness.
• You can find all types of ornaments. But neckless with at least 50gm are good. But there is neckless of only 10gms available as well.
• White gold is another good attraction. They are mostly decorated with diamonds.
• Most of the ornaments of white gold are made of 18k gold but because of the diamonds that they come with are almost always costly. But you have to do really good bargain.

I hope the information would be useful for you. Do proper research if you are planning to go to Dubai to buy some gold.