China has moved the grand launch of its international gold exchange to this Thursday, from an earlier Sept 29 schedule.

The change in schedule was made so that the government officials expected to participate in the launch event will all be present, Reuters quoted an unidentified source.

To be known as the "international board," China's gold trading platform under the Chinese government backed Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) is hosted in the city's free trade zone (FTZ).

SGE said 40 of its members, including global banks UBS, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Standard Chartered, will participate in the gold trading on the international board. They are expected to trade on Thursday 11 yuan denominated physical gold contracts including 12.5 kg (400 oz) bar, the ever popular 1 kg bar and a 100 gram contract.

The international board's launch mark's the first time that China will allow foreign players to participate directly in its physical gold market, considered the world's biggest.

The bourse expects to sign up more foreign trading members, and China expects it to become the center of Asian gold trading.

On Wednesday, spot gold jumped 0.1 percent to $1,236.70 an ounce by 0257 GMT in Singapore. However, analysts believed prices still remained close to the eight-month low of $1,225.30 hit on Monday.

Meanwhile, analysts are projecting China will be hiking its gold reserves this year to make the safe haven yellow metal gold a more prominent part of its foreign-exchange holdings.

Although it was in 2009 when China last revealed that its gold reserves holdings totaled 1,054.1 metric tonnes, analysts believed the country had been expanding its gold holdings in different ways over the past six or seven years, David Marsh, managing director at the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, told Bloomberg.

Data from the World Gold Council showed China now maintains the world's biggest foreign-exchange reserves, with bullion comprising 1.1 per cent of the total.

The U.S. has 8,133.5 tonnes of gold reserves, Germany has 3,384.2 tonnes and Italy, 2,451.8 tones, WGC data said. Russia has 1,105.3 tonnes.