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LONDON, Mar 30 (Reuters) Gold raced to a new 25-year peak on Thursday and silver spiked to its highest in more than 22 years as fund managers pumped more money into commodities ahead of the quarter-end.

Precious metals also got support from technical buying, strong base metals and a softer dollar, with prices seen heading towards their next big upside targets, analysts said.

Gold climbed as high as $579 an ounce, the strongest since January 1981, and was quoted at $578.00/578.75 by 0923 GMT (1453 IST). It closed in New York at $573.10/574.00 late on Wednesday.

Dealers said gold would now target $600.

''The way they are going, it ($600) could come quite quickly, although we should expect to see some profit-taking,'' said Robin Bhar, analyst at UBS Investment Bank.

''The $570 level was a quite big one. Once we got through there, we saw technical buying and other fund buying as well coming in to lift prices higher,'' he said.

The dollar slipped on Thursday, succumbing to profit-taking after scoring gains earlier this week on the Federal Reserve's signal that it was not quite finished raising interest rates.

A softer dollar makes gold cheaper for holders of other currencies and lifts gold buying.

But physical demand suffered in major consuming countries as buyers stayed on the sidelines because of volatile price moves.

Spot silver jumped to $11.40 an ounce, the highest since September 1983, and was last at $11.37/11.40, supported by speculative buying on hopes that an exchange-traded fund (ETF) will soon be launched.

''The rally in silver can expect added momentum from the high expectation and speculation surrounding the launch of the silver exchange-traded fund, rumoured to be backed by 130 million ounces of silver,'' Standard Bank said in a report.

Silver has risen almost 12 per cent since early last week when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission cleared the way for final approval of the first ETF to be backed by bullion.

ETFs are designed to track a specific market or commodity and trade like listed shares on an exchange.

But analysts said silver was vulnerable to a correction.

Platinum advanced to $1,083 an ounce to match last month's highest-ever price. It was quoted at $1,083/1,088 compared with $1,071/1,075 in New York.

Palladium strengthened to $345/350 an ounce, the highest in more than three years, from $333.50/337.50 in New York.

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