(Kitco News) – September was another banner month for gold purchases by the world’s central banks, according to Krishan Gopaul, Senior Analyst, EMEA at the World Gold Council.
“Reported global central bank gold reserves, via the IMF and publicly available sources, rose by a net 77t in September,” Gopaul said in an update on Thursday. “Gross sales (1t) were dwarfed by gross purchases (78t), highlighting the strength of buying.”
Gopaul noted that the central banks who have been regular buyers so far this year dominated purchases once again last month.
“Major buyers were all from emerging markets,” he said. “The People’s Bank of China added the most gold during the month (26t), followed by the National Bank of Poland and the Central Bank of Uzbekistan.”
Turkey and India were also major buyers last month, with the former also purchasing 15 tonnes of gold in August as it continues to rebuild its reserves following significant selling in April and May, while the latter has made a splash in recent months.
Looking at the year-to-date totals, Gopaul noted that “the People’s Bank of China remains the largest gold purchaser in 2023,” and that the central banks of emerging market countries “have been the driving force on both the purchases and sales side.”
“The Monetary Authority of Singapore remains the sole developed market bank adding gold to its reserves,” he said, and pointed out that (the addition by the European Central Bank) “was related to Croatia joining the eurozone in January,” and did not represent the buying intentions of the central bank itself.
According to the WGC’s recent Gold Demand Trends report, year-to-date central bank net buying of gold is 14% ahead of 2022. “Central banks have bought a net 800t of gold so far this year, the highest on record for that nine-month period,” the report said. “While there is a nucleus of committed regular buyers, the range of countries whose central banks have added to their reserves over recent quarters is broad-based.”
The 337t of gold purchased by central banks in Q3 “was the third strongest quarter in our data series, although [it] failed to match the exceptional 459t from Q3’22,” the analysts noted.
For Kitco News
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