Since achieving a peak collective holding of just over 37 thousand metric tonnes in 1963, central banks around the world have been dishoarding their gold. The following additive chart shows the gold reserves of central banks dating back to the start of the 20th century.

Source: Green (1999) and World Gold Council

Recent events have indicated that this trend of central banks being net sellers of gold is now reversing.

Gold has been hitting new highs in recent weeks, with the U.S. dollar weakening under loose monetary policy, eliminating the gains it made in late 2008. Investors are betting that Asia's emerging economic powers will buy more of the precious metal to diversify their foreign-exchange reserves against a weakening U.S. dollar.

Earlier this month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced that it had purchased 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This US$6.7 billion transaction is the largest purchase of gold made by a central bank in 30 years.

Several days later, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSR) announced that it had increased its gold reserves over the past five to six months by an undisclosed amount, speculated by analysts to be around five tonnes. Later that same month, on November 25, the IMF announced that Sri Lanka had purchased an additional ten tonnes of gold for US$375 million.

On November 16, the IMF issued a statement that it had sold two tonnes of gold to the central bank of Mauritius for US$71.7 million.

The central banks of India, Sri Lanka, and Mauritius have joined those of China and Russia as being net accumulators of gold.

Russia Continues Increasing Gold Reserves

On 16 November 2005, at the London Bullion Market Association Precious Metals Conference in Johannesburg, Russia's head of external reserves announced that the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) intended to double the amount of gold in its reserves portfolio from five percent to ten percent.

Throughout 2009 the CBR has been steadily purchasing gold, increasing its holding of 519 tonnes in January to 607 tonnes by October (an increase of nearly seventeen percent).

Additionally, Russia's Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin stated that the Gokhran repository will sell 30 tonnes of gold to the central bank in 2009. Gokhran, which was established by Tsar Peter the Great in 1719, is the Russian state's reserve of precious metals including gold and palladium as well as gems such as diamonds. The size of Gokhran's stocks is a state secret, disclosure of which is punishable by imprisonment.

This deal would be the first major gold sale by Gokhran since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, which kept a veil of secrecy over its sometimes significant foreign sales of precious metals and gems.

China Adds to Gold Reserves from Domestic Sources

Last year China ranked as the largest producer of gold at 288 metric tonnes, equivalent to 12.2% of global output. China is also quickly gaining on India in becoming the world's largest consumer of gold.

Hu Xiaolian, China's head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange announced in April this year that the People's Bank of China had increased its gold reserves by 454 metric tonnes since 2003 and that the total was being reported to the IMF per the organization's rules. Although Hu did not elaborate on where China had sourced the additional bullion, her comments were interpreted as implying they came from domestic sources and likely included the refining of scrap metal.

This increase makes China the world's fifth-largest holder of gold, just ahead of Switzerland, and places it among the six nations plus the IMF that have reserves exceeding 1,000 metric tonnes.

When asked during a Reuters interview to comment on RBI's recent purchase, Xia Bin, the chief of China's Financial Department of the Development and Research Centre stated, "India's okay with it, why shouldn't we be? What's the use for so many dollars, whose purchasing power is weakening anyway? With so many foreign reserves in hand, I think China should buy [gold], without doubt."

Changing Attitudes

Central banks began holding massive gold sales beginning in the early 1980s. Prices collapsed from an intraday high of US$878 per ounce on 21 January 1980 to US$252 per ounce on 25 August 1999. The last significant downward pressure on gold was the official announcement made by the United Kingdom to begin selling off a large portion of its gold reserve on 7 May 1999. That summer gold reached its lowest point in twenty years.

The UK sold approximately 395 tonnes of gold over seventeen auctions from July 1999 to March 2002, at an average price of about US$275 per ounce, raising approximately US$3.5 billion.1

Central banks then agreed to limit the quantity of gold sold through the Washington Agreement on Gold. This agreement, a sui generis among central bankers, was signed on 26 September 1999.

Two similar versions of this agreement were signed for five-year periods on 8 March 2004 and 19 August 2009.

This year is witnessing the world's central banks as being net buyers of gold following almost two decades of selling. Gold is still widely regarded as a safe store of value both among private individuals and governments.

Notes

1 This period is affectionately referred to as the "Brown Bottom" named after the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, who made the decision to sell off more than half of Britain's gold at the lowest point in its 20-year bear market.

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© 2009 DollarDaze

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mike Hewitt is the editor of DollarDaze.org, a website pertaining to commentary on the instability of the global fiat monetary system and investment strategies on mining companies. His website also provides a no-cost market data feed service with up-to-date quotes on currency exchange rates, commodity prices and major indices. Mike can be emailed at mikehewitt@hotmail.com.

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Posted in Current Events, Gold, Mike Hewitt