23:07 22 June 2021
NBP buying gold for first time in 2 years
The National Bank of Poland increased its gold reserves to 230.54 tonnes. It pointed to the possibility of introducing a strategy that provides for the purchase of 100 tonnes of gold to the domestic reserves over the next few years.
“This is the first purchase of the precious metals by the National Bank of Poland in almost two years, and the decision is in line with the trend of increasing interest in investments in precious metals, including gold ore,” Aleksander Pawlak, President of the Tavex Management Board, said.
Increasing gold resources can be seen as strengthening the security of national finances and accumulating a safe asset. It is worth noting that the current movement of the NBP and the purchase of an additional 60,000 ounces may seem like a small investment by central bank standards. For comparison, the Tavex Group sells an average of a similar amount of gold metal during the quarter. However, this is the first significant increase in Polish gold reserves since July 2019 (then they increased by 100 tonnes, raising the total gold reserves to 228.7 tons). As a reminder, it is worth mentioning that Poland increased its gold reserves also in 2018 by 25.7 tonnes, according to the data of the World Gold Council.
Similar decisions were made by the National Bank of Hungary, which in March this year. announced a strategic decision to triple its gold reserves. They increased from 31.5 tonnes to 94.5 tonnes, and the bank cites the crisis related to the pandemic as the main reason for such a move. The result of this action was the promotion of Budapest in the international rankings of countries with gold reserves from 56th position to 36th position. For comparison, Poland, with its reserves, ranks 22nd among central banks in the world. However, there is someone to chase, our western neighbors – Germany in its reserves have as much as 3,361.1 tonnes of ore.
Moreover, preliminary estimates for April this year by World Gold Council suggest that central banks have added 69.4 tonnes to the world's official gold reserves.
(WBJ)
