I don't think it will have much effect on gold pricing. For all...

I don't think it will have much effect on gold pricing. For all intents and purposes the gold futures trading on COMEX remain physically deliverable.

However, why is China, Singapore both setting up gold exchanges, and with CME setting planning to trade futures in hong kong?

Two possibilities:

1. they think they can grab market share from existing gold exchanges:

Bigger exchanges have bigger liquidity and therefore will have an advantage over small exchanges. The new exchange coming into the market must have something the incumbent exchanges don't.

2. they think the gold trade will increase sufficiently (increasing liquidity for all exchanges) for the fixed cost of maintaining a gold exchange to be worth it.

Both possibilities will have an interesting reason behind it. Maybe one day, we will know what it is.