Official gold reserves

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Gold reserves (or gold holdings) are held by central banks as a store of value. At the end of 2004 central banks and official organisations held 19 percent of all above ground gold as a reserve asset [link].

Contents

1 Official reported gold reserves
2 IMF gold reserves
3 Investment gold reserves
4 See also

Official reported gold reserves

As of 22 September 2005, the largest gold holdings in tonnes as reported by the World Gold Council can be seen on the table below [link]. The United States holding of gold is worth approximately $180.1 billion as of June 1st 2006.

1 United States   8,133.5
2 Germany         3,427.8
3 IMF             3,217.3 International Monetary Fund
4 France          2,892.6
5 Italy           2,451.8
6 Switzerland     1,290.1
7 Japan             765.2
8 Netherlands       722.4
9 ECB               719.9 European Central Bank
10 China, Mainland   600.0
11 Spain             493.3
12 Taiwan            423.3
13 Portugal          407.5
14 Russia            386.6
15 India             357.7
16 Venezuela         357.4
17 United Kingdom    311.3
18 Austria           307.5
19 Lebanon           286.8
20 Belgium           227.7
21 Philippines       187.9
22 BIS               185.3 Bank for International Settlements
23 Algeria           173.6
24 Sweden            155.4
25 Libya             143.8
26 Saudi Arabia      143.0
27 Singapore         127.4
28 South Africa      123.9
29 Turkey            116.1
30 Greece            107.9
31 Romania           104.9
32 Poland            102.9
33 Indonesia          96.5
34 Thailand           84.0
35 Australia          79.7
36 Kuwait             79.0
37 Egypt              75.6
38 Denmark            66.5
39 Pakistan           65.3
40 Kazakhstan         58.6

IMF gold reserves

IMF gold reserves refers to 3,217 tonnes of gold held by the International Monetary Fund. It is currently priced at a range of $40 and $50 a troy ounce (1.3 and 1.6 $/g), a price that was fixed in the 1970s before the Nixon government stopped pegging the U.S. dollar to the gold and instead allowed the market forces to set the dollar's worth. An attempt to revalue the gold reserve to today's value has met resistance for different reasons. Canada, a major gold producer, is against the idea of revaluing the reserve, as it would flood the market with gold and therefore depress its price [link]. It is also not clear whether the gold reserve is a property of IMF or member countries.

Three quarters of the gold reserve were contributed by G5 members, namely Germany, UK, France, Japan and United States.

Investment gold reserves

In April 2006, the gold exchange-traded funds by the World Gold Council and COMEX Gold Trust by iShares held 488 tonnes of gold in total for private and institutional investors [link] [link]. In 2004, it was estimated that the Indian public held 13,000 tonnes of gold in jewelry or other forms [link].

In 2001, it was estimated that all the gold ever mined totalled 145,000 tonnes [link]. As one metric tonne equals 1,000 kilograms (or 32,150 troy ounces), this equated to a value of $3 trillion in April 2006 [link]. For comparison, the global market capitalization for all stock markets was $43.6 trillion in March 2006 [link].

Official gold reserves

Official reported gold reserves

IMF gold reserves

Investment gold reserves

See also