India's Sept gold ETF collection up 15.3 pct on year

MUMBAI, Oct 9 (Reuters) - India's gold collection under
exchange-traded funds rose by 15.3 percent on year to 6.765
tonnes in September, data from the funds showed, in a month
when the yellow metal neared its all-time high.

Collections in rupee-terms rose by 35.1 percent to 9.82
billion rupees.

Gold futures MAUc1 on the Multi Commodity Exchange
rallied to a seven-month high of 16,009 rupees per 10 grams
last month, nearing the all-time high of 16,040 rupees, struck
on Feb. 20.

Though gold collections under ETFs are growing, they remain
miniscule against India's imports of about 700 tonnes annually.

Gold ETFs -- instruments that can be traded like shares and
are backed by physical gold holdings -- are more than a year
old and the segment may get crowded with some other funds
planning to enter.

The following table shows ETFs' gold holdings in metric
tonnes and their value in billion rupees:

FUNDS End Sept 2009 End Sept 2008

Gold *AUM Gold *AUM
=============================================================
Benchmark (GBES.NS: Quote, Profile, Research) 2.790 4.05 2.218 2.76

UTI UTIGF.NS> 1.701 2.03 1.433 1.76

Kotak (KTGF.NS: Quote, Profile, Research) 0.411 0.60 0.418 0.52

Reliance (RELE.NS: Quote, Profile, Research) 1.251 1.94 1.747 2.17

Quantum (QTGF.NS: Quote, Profile, Research) 0.077 0.12 0.052 0.06

**SBI GETS (SBIG.NS: Quote, Profile, Research)0.535 1.08 N.A. N.A.

==========================================================

6.765 9.82 5.868 7.27

* Assets under management -- figures are monthly average --
obtained from Association of Mutual Funds in India.

** Since SBI GETS was recently launched, comparables to the
previous year are not available.

(Reporting by Siddesh Mayenkar; Editing by Harish Nambiar)