Russian central bank still adding to its gold reserves — Lawrie Williams

Unlike the other big central bank buyer of gold, China, Russia is continuing to add to its gold reserves and reporting its increases. China has not reported any reserve increases since last October, but the general belief is that it is almost certainly adding to its gold reserves big time regardless and only reporting its increases when it deems it opportune to do so. Certainly known gold flows into the country, together with its own gold output as comfortably the world’s No. 1 gold producer, suggests this as China’s estimated gold consumption probably only accounts for around half of that being absorbed by the country on an annual basis, and this disregards any gold being imported from unknown sources that may not find its way into official data.
In June Russia added a further 300,000 ounces (9.33 tonnes) of gold to its reserves according to the regular monthly statement of its gold holdings by the Russian Central Bank. This brings its current total holdings to some 1,716 tonnes – still the world’s sixth largest national holding as reported to the IMF – and continuing to close the gap with the official Chinese figure of 1,842.6 tonnes. The June additions are much smaller than those reported for May (700,000 ounces or 21.8 tonnes), but more than the 6.2 tonnes it added in April. Russian gold reserve additions do fluctuate on a month by month basis, but recently it has been adding to its gold reserves at around 200 tonnes annually. For H1 2017 the total to date is 100.9 tonnes so the nation is right on track to add a similar 200 tonne amount to its official gold reserves in the current year.

This post was published at bloomberg