China Announces 5th Largest Gold Holdings in World

Jon Banking, Economy, Gold, Market Commentary, Precious Metals

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) announced today that it’s gold holdings have grown by 57% to about 1,658 metric tons. This is the first official update to China’s gold reserves since 2009.
China’s gold reserves are now the fifth largest of any country in the world and sixth when you include the holdings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Only the United States, Germany, Italy, and France hold more gold than China.
However, many believed China would announce even larger holdings than this. Ross Norman, CEO of bullion broker Sharps Pixley, told the Wall Street Journal, ‘The figure published by the PBOC is roughly half the market consensus on what we had thought they had accumulated…’
It’s true. Analysts around the world were expecting a much larger rise in China’s official holdings. As we reported in April, Bloomberg Intelligence predicted the PBOC could hold as much as 3,510 tons of the metal.
Jim Rickards – author of The Death of Money and one of the savviest commentators on the global economy – was also predicting much larger Chinese holdings. He did the math with Peter Schiff last August:

This post was published at Schiffgold on JULY 17, 2015.