What are gold reserves?
Gold reserves are state gold treasures in the form of bars , which are usually under the care of central banks or finance ministries. Germany has very extensive gold reserves and, with 3,400 tonnes (corresponding to a market value of 70.8 billion euros), is second in the world after the USA. The USA has over 8,000 tonnes of gold reserves. In third place is the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with 2,800 tonnes of gold reserves, closely followed by Italy (2,450 tonnes) and France (2,440 tonnes).
The German gold reserves
By far the largest part of Germany's gold reserves are located abroad - two thirds are stored in a storage facility of the New York Federal Reserve Bank in Manhattan, where they can also be viewed. Around a fifth is stored in the vaults of the Bank of England in London, 8% are at the Banque de France in Paris and only 5% are on German soil in Frankfurt am Main and in Mainz in branches of the Deutsche Bundesbank.
The systematic purchase of gold reserves began in Germany in 1951 and the largest amount of gold (4,000 tons) was in German state ownership in 1968. In the following period, the accumulated gold reserves were slowly reduced.
Latest developments in the field of gold reserves
In March 2012, several countries significantly increased their gold reserves. The most significant purchases were made by Mexico (+16.8 tons), Russia (+16.5 tons) and Turkey (+16.5 tons). Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Tajikistan and Belarus also increased their gold reserves.
This shows that gold reserves are becoming increasingly important again.
Source: World Gold Council: World Gold Council Statistics; goldreporter.de
