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Gold reserve
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For private and state holdings in gold, see Gold holdings.
World Gold Reserves from 1845 to 2013, in tonnes (also known as metric tons in the United States)
Official U.S. gold reserve since 1900
Changes in Central Bank Gold Reserves by Country 1993-2014
Changes in Central Bank Gold Reserves by Country versus time for the last 10 years
Gold reserves per capita
A gold reserve was the gold held by a national central bank, intended mainly as a guarantee to redeem promises to pay depositors, note holders (e.g. paper money), or trading peers, during the eras of the gold standard, and also as a store of value, or to support the value of the national currency.
The World Gold Council estimates that all the gold ever mined totaled 187,200 tonnes in 2017[1] but other independent estimates vary by as much as 20%.[2] At a price of US$1,250 per troy ounce, reached on 16 August 2017, one tonne of gold has a value of approximately US$40.2 million. The total value of all gold ever mined would exceed US$7.5 trillion at that valuation and using WGC 2017 estimates.[note 1]
Contents
[hide]
1 Wartime relevance
2 IMF holdings
3 Officially reported holdings
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
Wartime relevance[edit]
During most of history, a nation's gold reserves were considered its key financial asset and a major prize of war.
A typical view was expressed in a secret memorandum by the British Chief of the Imperial General Staff from October 1939, at the beginning of World War II. The British Military and the British Secret Service laid out "measures to be taken in the event of an invasion of Holland and Belgium by Germany" and presented them to the War Cabinet:
It will be for the Treasury in collaboration with the Bank of England, and the Foreign Office, to examine the possible means of getting the bullion and negotiable securities into the same place of safety. The transport of many hundreds of tons of bullion presents a difficult problem and the loading would take a long time. The ideal would of course be to have the gold transferred to this country or to the United States of America. [...] The gold reserves of Belgium and Holland amount to about £70 million and £110 million respectively. [Foot]Note: H. M. Treasury has particularly requested that this information, which is highly confidential should in no circumstances be divulged. The total weight of this bullion amounts to about 1800 tons and its evacuation would be a matter of the utmost importance would present a considerable problem if it had to be undertaken in a hurry when transport facilities were disorganized. At present this gold is believed to be stored at Brussels and The Hague respectively, neither of which is very well placed for its rapid evacuation in an emergency.[3]
The Belgian government rushed to ship the gold to a safe place: Dakar, the capital of Senegal, then part of the French colonial empire. After the Germans occupied Belgium and France in 1940, they demanded the Belgian gold reserve back. In 1941, Vichy French officials arranged the transport of 4,944 boxes with 198 tons of gold to officials of the German Reichsbank.[4]
IMF holdings[edit]
Since early 2011, the gold holdings of the IMF have been constant at 90.5 million troy ounces (2,814.1 metric tons).[5]
Officially reported holdings[edit]
The IMF regularly maintains statistics of national assets as reported by various countries.[6] This data is used by the World Gold Council to periodically rank and report the gold holdings of countries and official organizations.
On 17 July 2015, China announced that it increased its gold reserves by about 57 percent from 1,054 to 1,658 metric tons, while disclosing its official gold reserves for the first time in six years.[7][8]
The gold listed for each of the countries in the table may not be physically stored in the country listed, as central banks generally have not allowed independent audits of their reserves. Gold leasing by central banks could place into doubt the reported gold holdings in the table below.[9]
Top 20 according to World Gold Council's latest rankings (as at December 2017)[10][11][12][13]
Rank
Country/Organization
Gold holdings
(in tonnes)
Gold's share of
forex reserves
1 United States 8,133.5 74.9%
2 Germany 3,373.6 68.9%
3 International Monetary Fund 2,814.0 N/A
4 Italy 2,451.8 67.3%
5 France 2,435.9 64.9%
6 China 1,842.6 2.3%
7 Russia 1,829.0 17.63%
8 Switzerland 1,040.0 5.3%
9 Japan 765.2 2.5%
10 Netherlands 612.5 66.3%
11 India 557.8 5.7%
12 Turkey[14] 525.8 18.3%
13 European Central Bank 504.8 29.3%
14 Taiwan 423.6 3.7%
15 Portugal 382.5 63.7%
16 Saudi Arabia 322.9 2.6%
17 United Kingdom 310.3 8.5%
18 Kazakhstan 291.9 37.5%
19 Lebanon 286.8 20.5%
20 Spain 281.6 17.0%
See also[edit]
Gold Reserve (company)
Black Friday (1869) -- Also referred to as the Gold Panic of 1869
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Gold as an investment
Gold repatriation
Gold reserves of Norway
Gold reserves of the United Kingdom
Gold standard
List of countries by gold production
Moscow gold, the reserves of the Bank of Spain sent to the Soviet Union during the Spanish Civil War
Peak gold
Romanian Treasure, the Romanian gold reserves sent (alongside other valuable objects) to Russia for safekeeping during World War I, but never returned
Silver as an investment
Strategic Petroleum Reserve (United States)
United States Bullion Depository, often known as Fort Knox
Vaulted gold
Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ One tonne is equal to approximately 32,150.75 troy ounces. Gold, silver, & other precious metals & gems are weighed by the troy ounce: 12 troy ounces = 1 pound (and not 16 to 1 as in most other normal weights), so there would be 24,000 troy ounces to one ton of weight.
References[edit]
Jump up ^ "How much gold has been mined?", World Gold Council
Jump up ^ "How much gold is there in the world?" by Ed Prior, BBC News, 1 April 2013
Jump up ^ Memorandum by War Cabinet Secretary E. E. Bridges from October 6, 1939, Secret: Holland and Belgium: Measures to be taken in the event of an invasion by Germany. P. 1 and 4. The National Archives (United Kingdom)
Jump up ^ "Belgian gold in foreign hands". Museum of the National Bank of Belgium. 4 March 2010. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
Jump up ^ "Gold in the IMF". International Monetary Fund. Archived from the original on April 22, 2011.
Jump up ^ "Data Template on International Reserves and Foreign Currency Liquidity -- Reporting Countries".
Jump up ^ "Gold & Foreign Exchange Reserves".
Jump up ^ "Major Factors Affecting Gold Prices Fluctuation". FXdailyReport.Com. 2016-07-22. Retrieved 2016-10-28.
Jump up ^ "- Sprott Global Resource Investments Ltd".
Jump up ^ "Research - World Gold Council".
Jump up ^ "Latest World Official Gold Reserves - World Gold Council".
Jump up ^ "Gold Demand Trends - World Gold Council".
Jump up ^ "Top 40 reported official gold holdings (as at December 2017)"
Jump up ^ Gold has been added to Turkey's balance sheet as a result of a policy accepting gold in its reserve requirements from commercial banks.
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