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By taking the current spot price of US $ 1,321.15 Troy ounce, gold purchases by central banks in 2018 amounted to US $ 27.7 billion of expenditure for the precious metal.
"The increased geopolitical and economic uncertainty over the course of the year has led more and more central banks to diversify their reserves and refocus their attention on the main objective of investing in investments. safe and liquid badets, "says the report released Thursday.
The WGC said most of the purchases were made by a handful of central banks, with Russia at the head of the group seeking to exchange dollars from its portfolio. The Russian central bank sold almost all of its US Treasury shares to buy 274.3 tonnes of gold in 2018.
Turkey's central bank increased its gold reserves by 51.5 tons in 2018. This is a second consecutive year of net purchases, but it has been lower by 40 % to the volume that she bought in 2017.
Other major buyers of central banks were Kazakhstan, India, Iraq, Poland and Hungary.
Net sales of gold from central banks remained low, with less than 15 tons. Australia, Germany, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Ukraine accounted for almost all of this figure.
WGC said total gold demand in 2018 was 4,345.1 tonnes. The strongest demand came from jewelry, which, although stable compared to 2017, accounted for just over half of the total. Bars and coins contributed 1,090 tonnes in 2018, an increase of 4% over the previous year. The gold used in the technology climbed slightly to 334.6 tons.
The price of gold has risen about 9% over the last three months.
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