Central Banks’ Gold Frenzy Keeps Sparkling, Enticingly Unstoppable in 2024.

Central banks bought a record amount of gold in the first half of this year, as China and Russia both look to reduce their dependency on the US dollar. In 2013, organisations reported that on a year-to-date basis, central banks had purchased 800 tonnes of gold, 14% more than the previous year. There are several reasons why the central banks of Russia, China and other countries are buying up so much gold: 1) they want to increase their reserves and diversify away from US bonds and dollars; 2) the value of a nation’s gold base increases its GWP (the size of its gold reserves helps to maintain a strong currency and the size of gold reserves reflects the monetary strength of nations). At the same time, US Federal Reserve’s potential easing of its monetary policies in 2014 coupled with inflation fears are driving central banks to buy gold as a hedge. As China’s and Russia’s gold reserves