Official gold reserves

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gold reserves (or gold holdings) are held by central banks as a store of value. In 2001, it was estimated that all the gold ever mined totaled 145,000 tonnes.[1] One tonne of gold equated to a value of US$25.75 million as of October 2008 ($730/troy ounces)[2]. The total value of all gold ever mined would be $3.39 trillion at October 2008 prices.

At the end of 2004, central banks and official organizations held 19% of all above-ground gold as a reserve asset.[3] About one percent of all above-ground gold (370 metric tonnes) was mined in the first five years of the California Gold Rush (worth approximately $11 billion at July 2008 prices).[4]

[edit] IMF gold reserves

IMF gold reserves refers to 3,217 tonnes of gold held by the International Monetary Fund. It is currently priced at $42 a troy ounce ($1,370/kg) for accounting purposes, a price that was fixed in 1971 just before the Nixon administration officially delinked the U.S. dollar from gold and instead allowed 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. For example, Canada is against the idea of revaluing the reserve, as it would flood the market with gold and therefore depress its price.[5] It is also not clear whether the gold reserve is the property of the IMF or of member countries.

[edit] Privately held gold

As of September 2008, gold exchange-traded funds held 1,039 tonnes of gold in total for private and institutional investors.

[edit] Officially reported gold reserves

The largest gold holdings in tonnes as reported by the World Gold Council can be seen in the table below, per 22 September 2005 and 14 December 2007, ranked by their 2005 holdings.[6] The United States' holding of gold is worth approximately $241 billion (July 2008). Although the United States has the largest reserves of individual countries, in total the eurozone gold holdings are greater (11,065 tonnes as of December 2007).

World official gold holding (June 2008)[6]
-	World	29,822.6	-
1	USA	8,133.5	78.2%
2	Germany	3,417.4	66.3%
3	International Monetary Fund	3,217.3	-
4	France	2,562.3	59.4%
5	Italy	2,451.8	68.1%
6	Switzerland	1,100.7	39.8%
7	Japan	765.2	2.1%
-	SPDR Gold Trust (a Gold exchange-traded fund)	745.2[7]	-
8	Netherlands	621.4	61.2%
9	European Central Bank	563.6	24.8%
10	People's Republic of China	600.0	0.9%
11	Republic of China (Taiwan)	423.3	4.0%
12	Spain	416.8	42.5%
13	Russia	402.8	2.8%
14	Portugal	382.5	86.8%
15	India	357.7	3.3%
16	Venezuela	356.8	33.3%
17	United Kingdom	310.3	14.8%
18	Lebanon	286.8	36.9%
19	Austria	280.0	41.7%
20	Belgium	227.6	37.2%
21	Algeria	173.6	3.7%
22	Sweden	146.6	14.0%
23	Libya	143.8	4.5%
24	Saudi Arabia	143.0	11.1%
25	Bank for International Settlements	134.9	-
26	Philippines	130.8	10.1%
27	Singapore	127.4	2.0%
28	South Africa	124.3	10.3%
29	Turkey	116.1	4.2%
30	Greece	112.8	89.9%
31	Romania	103.7	6.9%
32	Poland	102.9	3.8%
33	Thailand	84.0	2.2%
34	Australia	79.8	6.7%
35	Kuwait	79.0	11.9%
36	Egypt	75.6	6.2%
37	Indonesia	73.1	3.5%
38	Kazakhstan	67.4	10.0%
39	Denmark	66.5	4.9%
40	Pakistan	65.3	14.2%
41	Argentina	54.7	3.1%
42	Finland	49.1	16.1%
43	Bulgaria	39.8	5.9%
44	West African Economic and Monetary Union	36.5	9.4%
45	Malaysia	36.4	0.9%
46	Slovakia	35.1	5.0%
47	Peru	34.7	3.0%
48	Brazil	33.6	0.5%
-	Central Fund of Canada (Closed End Mutual Fund - (AMEX:CEF))	30.2[8]	-
49	Bolivia	28.3	12.2%
50	Ecuador	26.3	13.1%
51	Ukraine	26.2	2.2%
52	Syria	25.9	-
53	Morocco	22.0	2.4%
54	Nigeria	21.4	1.0%
55	Belarus	19.5	10.7%
56	South Korea	14.3	0.2%
57	Jordan	14.1	6.1%
58	Cyprus	13.9	31.8%
59	Czech Republic	13.2	1.0%
60	Netherlands Antilles	13.1	35.5%
61	Cambodia	12.4	14.6%
62	Qatar	12.4	2.2%
63	Serbia	12.2	2.3%
-	BullionVault	9.5[9]	-
64	Laos	8.1	27.5%
65	Latvia	7.7	3.4%
66	El Salvador	7.3	8.4%
67	Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa	7.1	1.6%
68	Guatemala	6.9	4.3%
69	Colombia	6.9	0.9%
70	Macedonia	6.8	8.1%
71	Tunisia	6.8	2.3%
72	Lithuania	5.8	2.3%
73	Ireland	5.5	16.8%
74	Mongolia	5.2	11.3%
75	Sri Lanka	5.2	3.9%
76	Bahrain	4.7	-
77	Bangladesh	3.5	1.7%
78	Canada	3.4	0.2%
79	Slovenia	3.2	8.4%
80	Aruba	3.1	17.0%
81	Hungary	3.1	0.3%
82	Mozambique	3.0	5.3%
83	Mexico	2.9	0.1%
84	Kyrgyzstan	2.6	6.5%
85	Luxembourg	2.3	8.7%
86	Albania	2.2	2.7%
87	Hong Kong	2.1	0.0%
88	Iceland	2.0	2.0%
89	Papua New Guinea	2.0	2.6%
90	Mauritius	1.9	2.5%
91	Trinidad and Tobago	1.9	0.7%
92	Tajikistan	1.8	-
93	Yemen	1.6	0.5%
94	Suriname	1.4	7.7%
95	Cameroon	0.9	0.9%
96	Honduras	0.7	0.7%
97	Dominican Republic	0.6	0.6%
98	Gabon	0.4	0.9%
99	Malawi	0.4	7.9%
100	Central African Republic	0.3	10.3%
101	Chad	0.3	1.0%
102	Republic of the Congo	0.3	0.4%
103	Uruguay	0.3	0.1%
104	Estonia	0.2	0.2%
105	Chile	0.2	0.0%
106	Malta	0.2	0.9%
107	Costa Rica	0.1	0.0%

[edit] See also

• Foreign exchange reserves
• Sovereign wealth fund
• United States Bullion Depository
• Federal Reserve Bank of New York
• Gold as an investment