Russian Central Bank Urged to Resume Gold Purchases

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster):  The Russian banks have asked the country’s central bank to resume gold purchases to its reserves. However, the central bank had earlier stated that further decision of gold purchases would be purely dependent on evolving financial market situation.

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Vasily Zablotsky, the head of the National Finance Association noted that the Russian banks face problems in exporting gold, as there are only few cargo flights to overseas destinations including London, which continues to display strong demand for the yellow metal. The banks will be forced to stop purchases or raise limit in own vaults, if they are unable to sell the gold bought from miners.

The Russian central bank had earlier announced that it will stop gold purchases in the domestic precious metals market with effect from 1st April, 2020, without citing any specific reason.

In 2019, Russian central bank had purchased 5.1 million ounces out of the 10.1 million ounces of gold produced in the country. It had exported 3.7 million ounces to global markets, mainly to Britain and Switzerland. The Russian gold reserves currently stands at 73.6 million troy ounces, official data said.