Major central banks reduce their gold

Article Excerpt

A central bank is usually the designated investment manager of a country’s reserve assets. It effectively invests on behalf of the country and its citizens. Its key objective is to preserve the value of the assets and to insure against severe financial crises. Apart from safety, liquidity is also important for reserve managers, while investment return is another consideration. Typical assets held in these reserve portfolios are secure deposits with official institutions such as the Bank for International Settlements; U.S., German or Japanese government fixed-income securities; and gold. Globally, central banks hold on average 12% of their reserves in gold, although that varies from country to country. The U.S. and Germany hold over 70% of their reserves in gold, while Russia holds 18%, India, 6%, and China, 2.4%. Like China, other emerging countries hold a much smaller proportion (on average 3%) compared to developed countries. The largest holder of gold is the U.S. with 8,133 tonnes. It’s followed by Germany (3,372 tonnes), Italy…