Gold Hills Mining Ltd. (fka GHML)

[Lamberjack]

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Gold prices will be supported at higher levels until real interest rates start to rise, which is 2013 at the earliest, the head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. /quotes/zigman/188479/quotes/nls/gs GS +0.12% said Wednesday.

"No-one in this room can accurately predict when real interest rates will start to rise...we see the earliest time as being 2013," Jeff Currie told a conference in London. "There's still modest upside for gold, but we're not jumping up and down pounding the table bulls as we have been in the past."

Currie said that for the next 12 months at least, gold prices would still see "significant upside."

Spot gold has fallen in recent weeks after peaking at an all-time high of $1,920.94/oz on Sept. 6. At 0940 GMT, spot gold was up 0.6% at $1,714.22 a troy ounce, benefiting from uncertainty over the outcome of the meeting of European policymakers later Wednesday, which is seeking to find a solution to the region's debt problems.

Currie was speaking at the Terrapinn Commodities Week conference.