The people's Bank of China's gold reserves rise eight times in a row. Central banks actively increase their holdings in the first half of the year

Beijing (Aug 10)  the World Gold Council recently published an article saying that recently, data released by the investigation and Statistics Department of the people's Bank of China showed that China continued to expand the scale of gold reserves in July, which is the eighth consecutive month of increase in gold reserves of the people's Bank of China since December 2018.

By the end of July, China's gold reserves had increased by 9.95 tons to 1936.5 tons, according to data released by the people's Bank of China.

Overall, China's gold reserves rose 74 tons in the first half of the year, with net monthly purchases rising slightly in the second quarter, increasing the average monthly purchase to 12.3 tons in the first half of 2019, up from 11 tons in the first quarter.

With the exception of China, central banks continue to accumulate gold reserves at a healthy rate. According to data released by the World Gold Council in August, net purchases by central banks around the world reached 374.1 tons in the first half of 2019, up 57 per cent from a year earlier and the highest (on an annual basis) since central banks became net buyers in 2010.

In the year to June, the world's official gold reserves totaled 34076.88 tons. Of this total, the eurozone (including the European Central Bank) accounted for 10776.9 tons, accounting for 55.8 percent of its total foreign exchange reserves, and the (CBGA) signatories to the central bank's gold sales agreement totaled 10901.5 tons, accounting for 52.7 percent of their total foreign exchange reserves. In these six months, the gold reserves of nine central banks have increased by at least one tonne. This continues the trend in recent quarters, as demand for increased gold holdings has spread among central banks in more countries, mainly emerging markets.

According to the world's top 15 official gold reserve data, as of June 2019, the official reserves of the United States, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, India, the Netherlands, Taiwan and Portugal had not changed, while emerging market central banks continued to accumulate gold reserves at a steady rate. Russia, China and Kazakhstan still led the way in buying in the first half of the year. Of these, Russia recorded the highest increase in gold reserves from 2190.1 tons to 2207 tons in May

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