Official gold reserves

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Contents 1 IMF gold reserves 2 Privately held gold 3 Officially reported gold reserves 4 See also 5 References

Gold reserves (or gold holdings) are held by central banks as a store of value. In 2001, it was estimated that all the gold ever mined totaled 145,000 tonnes.^[1] One tonne of gold equated to a value of US$25.75 million as of October 2008 ($730/troy ounces)^[2]. The total value of all gold ever mined would be $3.39 trillion at October 2008 prices.

At the end of 2004, central banks and official organizations held 19% of all above-ground gold as a reserve asset.^[3] About one percent of all above-ground gold (370 metric tonnes) was mined in the first five years of the California Gold Rush (worth approximately $11 billion at July 2008 prices).^[4]

[edit] IMF gold reserves

IMF gold reserves refers to 3,217 tonnes of gold held by the International Monetary Fund. It is currently priced at $42 a troy ounce ($1,370/kg) for accounting purposes, a price that was fixed in 1971 just before the Nixon administration officially delinked the U.S. dollar from gold and instead allowed market forces to set the dollar's worth. An attempt to revalue the gold reserve to today's value has met resistance for different reasons. For example, Canada is against the idea of revaluing the reserve, as it would flood the market with gold and therefore depress its price.^[5] It is also not clear whether the gold reserve is the property of the IMF or of member countries.

[edit] Privately held gold

As of September 2008, gold exchange-traded funds held 1,039 tonnes of gold in total for private and institutional investors.

[edit] Officially reported gold reserves

The largest gold holdings in tonnes as reported by the World Gold Council can be seen in the table below, per 22 September 2005 and 14 December 2007, ranked by their 2005 holdings.^[6] The United States' holding of gold is worth approximately $241 billion (July 2008). Although the United States has the largest reserves of individual countries, in total the eurozone gold holdings are greater (11,065 tonnes as of December 2007).

World official gold holding (September 2008)[6]
Rank	Country/Organization	Gold (tonnes)	Gold's share of total forex reserves (%)[6]
-	World	29,783.9	-
-	Eurozone (including the European Central Bank)	10,911.4	58.0%
1	United States	8,133.5	77.3%
2	Germany	3,413.1	66.4%
3	International Monetary Fund	3,217.3	-
4	France	2,540.9	57.8%
5	Italy	2,451.8	67.0%
6	Switzerland	1,064.1	38.1%
7	Japan	765.2	2.1%
-	SPDR Gold Trust (a Gold exchange-traded fund)	745.2[7]	-
8	Netherlands	621.4	59.9%
9	People's Republic of China	600.0	0.9%
10	European Central Bank	533.6	23.0%
11	Russia	472.6	2.1%
12	Republic of China (Taiwan)	422.4	3.8%
13	Portugal	382.5	85.5%
14	India	357.7	3.1%
15	Venezuela	356.8	29.3%
16	United Kingdom	310.3	15.4%
17	Lebanon	286.8	33.5%
18	Spain	281.6	39.0%
19	Austria	280.0	40.4%
20	Belgium	227.6	37.3%
21	Algeria	173.6	3.4%
22	Libya	143.8	4.2%
23	Sweden	143.2	11.7%
24	Saudi Arabia	143.0	10.0%
25	Philippines	133.1	9.9%
26	Singapore	127.4	1.9%
27	Bank for International Settlements	125.0	-
28	South Africa	124.3	9.6%
29	Turkey	116.0	3.9%
30	Greece	104.6	87.6%
31	Romania	103.7	6.6%
32	Poland	102.9	3.3%
33	Thailand	84.0	2.2%
34	Australia	79.8	6.1%
35	Kuwait	79.0	13.4%
36	Egypt	75.6	5.8%
37	Indonesia	73.1	3.3%
38	Kazakhstan	73.0	9.4%
39	Denmark	66.5	5.1%
40	Pakistan	65.3	16.0%
41	Argentina	54.7	3.1%
42	Finland	49.1	15.7%
43	Bulgaria	39.6	5.1%
44	West African Economic and Monetary Union	36.5	9.0%
45	Malaysia	36.4	0.8%
46	Slovakia	35.1	4.8%
47	Peru	34.7	2.6%
48	Brazil	33.6	0.4%
-	Central Fund of Canada (Closed End Mutual Fund - (AMEX:CEF))	30.2[8]	-
49	Bolivia	28.3	10.3%
50	Ecuador	26.3	11.6%
51	Ukraine	26.2	2.0%
52	Syria	25.9	-
53	Morocco	22.0	2.2%
54	Nigeria	21.4	0.9%
55	Belarus	20.3	11.6%
56	Jordan	14.8	5.2%
57	South Korea	14.3	0.1%
58	Cyprus	13.9	29.7%
59	Czech Republic	13.2	0.9%
60	Netherlands Antilles	13.1	31.4%
61	Cambodia	12.4	12.9%
62	Qatar	12.4	2.6%
63	Serbia	12.2	2.3%
-	BullionVault	11.9[9]	-
64	Laos	8.1	23.1%
65	Latvia	7.7	3.3%
66	El Salvador	7.3	8.2%
67	Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa	7.1	-
68	Guatemala	6.9	3.9%
69	Colombia	6.9	0.8%
70	Macedonia	6.8	7.6%
71	Tunisia	6.8	2.1%
72	Lithuania	5.8	2.3%
73	Ireland	5.5	16.3%
74	Sri Lanka	5.3	3.8%
75	Mongolia	5.2	10.9%
76	Bahrain	4.7	-
77	Bangladesh	3.5	1.6%
78	Mexico	3.4	0.1%
79	Canada	3.4	0.2%
80	Slovenia	3.2	7.2%
81	Aruba	3.1	17.1%
82	Hungary	3.1	0.3%
83	Mozambique	3.0	4.6%
84	Kyrgyzstan	2.6	5.3%
85	Luxembourg	2.3	10.8%
86	Albania	2.2	2.6%
87	Hong Kong	2.1	0.0%
88	Iceland	2.0	1.9%
89	Tajikistan	2.0	-
90	Papua New Guinea	2.0	2.1%
91	Mauritius	1.9	2.4%
92	Trinidad and Tobago	1.9	0.6%
93	Yemen	1.6	0.5%
94	Suriname	1.4	7.0%
95	Cameroon	0.9	-
96	Honduras	0.7	0.7%
97	Paraguay	0.7	0.6%
98	Dominican Republic	0.6	0.7%
99	Gabon	0.4	-
100	Republic of the Congo	0.3	-
101	Chad	0.3	-
102	Central African Republic	0.3	-
103	Uruguay	0.3	0.1%
104	Estonia	0.2	0.1%
105	Chile	0.2	0.0%
106	Malta	0.2	0.8%
107	Costa Rica	0.1	0.0%

[edit] See also

• Foreign exchange reserves
• Sovereign wealth fund
• United States Bullion Depository
• Federal Reserve Bank of New York
• Gold as an investment
• Strategic Petroleum Reserve
• The "Moscow gold", the reserves of the Bank of Spain sent to the Soviet Union during the Spanish Civil War.

[edit] References