An international buying spree, or flight to safety by global investors, saw silver prices breach 30-year highs on Sunday at $33.30 an ounce and in a continuation of the trend, spot silver prices were up further in early trade on Monday, making yet another high of $33.44/oz.

Emerging economies of China and India are both heavy consumers of the metal, which is used in jewellery but also has its use as a raw material for industrial use.

Silver is now up 16.77 per cent in the past 30 days and according to traders, has more than doubled in the last one year, trading as it was at $16.24/oz on February 27, 2010.

Compared with this, gold prices have gone up by less than 6 per cent in the past 30 days and according to data sourced from goldprice.org, the yellow metal is up by just 26 per cent in the last one year.

This is now leading to precious metal analysts to argue that silver will see much more appreciation in the months to come, especially since the extent of global silver reserves are debatable.

“Robust international demand, financial and political instability across the world, and concerns over remaining reserves all harbour well for the price of silver,” said a Mumbai-based wholesale trader of silver. “Silver is the new gold,” he said.