China on Wednesday announced it has discovered a gold mine in the Ili Valley in the country's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. With reserves estimated to be at 53 tonnes, the said discovery could translate to an economic value of $3.2 billion.

The mine, the largest such resource found in the western area of the Tianshan Mountains, also holds copper reserves estimated at 31,200 tonnes, Zeng Xiaogang, head of Xinjiang's geology and mineral resources bureau, said. The copper reserves could translate to be worth $230 million.

Xinjiang region is near the Kazakh border.

The mine is expected to start operations by end 2015, to be managed by Meisheng Group, which had invested about $25 million in the gold mine project. It expects to churn out three tonnes of the safe haven yellow gold metal annually.

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According to the bureau, it is the second large gold mine discovered in the Ili Valley. The first was in 1988 which had gold reserves of 50 tonnes worth.

The zone is located within the Narat-Hongliu River metallogenic belt, together with gold mines in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Further ores are likely to be found in the belt, the bureau said.

In the first quarter of 2013, according to the World Gold Council, China's total demand for the safe haven yellow gold metal amounted to 294 tonnes, with the country's jewelry demand jumping 19 per cent from a year ago. Bar and coin investment demand likewise grew by 22 per cent from the first quarter of 2012.

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