India's Central Bank Boosted Gold Reserves by 7.5 Tonnes

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster):  The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) added 7.5 tonnes of gold to its reserves in the month of October last year. This is the first gold purchases by the Indian central bank after a gap of five months.

According to data shared by central banks across the globe, RBI currently holds 625.2 tonnes of gold, accounting for 6.6% of its forex reserves, reported the World Gold Council (WGC). The cumulative gold purchases by the bank totalled 25.2 tonnes in the initial ten-month period last year, thereby making it the sixth largest buyer of the yellow metal. The other countries, whose central banks recorded higher purchases than India were China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Poland.

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The central banks across the world reported net gold purchases of 27.9 tonnes in November last year. The banks added 570.20 tonnes through November 2019. This is higher by 11% when matched with the corresponding eleven-month period in 2018. The cumulative gold purchases by central banks had totalled 515.20 tonnes in Jan-Nov ’18.

The WGC data suggests that Venezuela sold 30.3 tonnes of gold in 2019. Also, Uzbekistan central bank offloaded 16.6 tonnes of gold.

The institutional buying in gold-backed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) emerged as the second biggest buyers of gold during the previous year. WGC predicts strong ETF gold buying in 2020 as well.