2022 has seen the highest level of national gold buying on record. The total volume of precious metal purchased by central banks last year was 1,136 tons, which is an all-time high since 1950. The new year saw a continuation of the trend – a valuable asset is bought with a extraordinary zeal by almost every country in the world without exception.
In January, central banks around the world added an additional 77 tonnes to their gold reserves. Turkey has become the biggest buyer and continues to replenish its reserves with this asset, buying an additional 23 tons in January. Now in Turkey there are 565 tons of precious metals. China reported a further increase of 14.9 tonnes in its gold reserves, on top of the 62 tonnes recorded between November and December 2022.
The European Central Bank reported an increase in its gold reserves of nearly 2 tons in January. According to the WGC, this was due to Croatia joining the Eurozone. The only notable seller in January was Uzbekistan, whose stocks fell by 12 tons due to international sales.
Experts explain this unbridled accumulation of gold reserves by many countries of the world with the desire to support, secure and stabilize national currencies as much as possible, which signals a tacit return to the obsolete pattern of supplying money with some something that has real value and stable quotes. The emphasis on the dollar, as the main reserve instrument, has obviously shifted towards gold. It is therefore not surprising that in a year marked by geopolitical uncertainty and runaway inflation, central banks have decided to continue to add a large asset to their coffers, and at an accelerated pace.
The rapidly changing environment and the virtualization of the financial environment, with its insecure assets and its IT tools based more on trust than on a solid economic base, has proven to be a double-edged sword, allowing to get rich quick, but fail no less quickly, fueling inflation. Consequently, the “medieval” methods of regulation and financial provisioning, in particular the constitution of reserves, are back in vogue, at least at the state level, as long as the private sector continues to believe in ambiguous or even harmful progress in the field of finance.
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