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Official Gold Reserves

posted on Nov 07, 2008 01:42PM

Official gold reserves

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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).

RankCountry/OrganizationGold
(tonnes)Gold's share of reserves
(%)
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

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