Bright future for gold helps N. American producers TORONTO, Feb. 23 (Reuters) -- The belief that gold is heading above $300 and that a fresh round of restrictions was in the works on selling gold from central bank reserves helped North American gold miners to a strong showing on Friday. The Toronto Stock Exchange's gold and precious minerals index, which includes some of the world's top gold companies, was up more than 3.7 percent in afternoon trading, while the overall market was down 1.3 percent. The sudden interest in gold mining stocks is based on the belief that gold, which has been under pressure in recent months, is pulling itself out of the doldrums as the supply/demand curve moves back in favor of the yellow metal. Gold, which trades in a 52-week range of $252.80 to $326.25 an ounce in London, closed at $260.30 an ounce on Friday. "There is a belief that we are yet again heading for that the $285 to $300 an ounce area, which would be good," said John Ing, president of Maison Placements Canada, in Toronto. Ing also said there were rumors that a number of central banks were poised to enact another gold accord, limiting the amount of bullion they could sell. "I don't think it would be bad that we have another accord," Ing said. "What that does is remove gold from the market." When the central banks last agreed to limit sales, in September 1999, gold climbed to about $328 an ounce from around $255. Bullion was also helped by the financial and political crisis in Turkey. Turkey abandoned its policy of pegging its currency against the dollar this week, and the lira went into free-fall, reaching rates under one million to the dollar. "Turkey is a big consumer of gold and there is belief that demand for gold came from that country because of the devaluation," Ing said. -END- ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-~> <FONT COLOR="#000099">eGroups is now Yahoo! Groups Click here for more details </FONT><A HREF="http://us.click.yahoo.com/kWP7PD/pYNCAA/4ihDAA/WyOVlB/TM"><B>Click Here!</B></A> ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/