Reserve Bank of India enters top-10 list of central banks in gold reserves

Chennai: Having increased its gold holdings by 3.7 tonnes in March, the Reserve Bank of India has entered the top-10 list of central banks with the highest yellow metal reserves.

Data published by the World Gold Council shows the RBI bought 12.1 tonnes of gold from the open market from January this year. It had purchased 6.5 tonnes in January, 1.9 tonnes in February and 3.7 tonnes in March. Till February, India stood at the 11th position in terms of gold reserves with 608. 8 tonnes. After buying 3.7 tonnes in March it has pushed the Netherlands to 11th to secure a slot in the top-10 list.

As on May 30, RBI has 612.6 tonnes of gold holdings and the Netherlands central bank, 612.5 tonnes.

US tops the list with 8,133.5 tonnes and gold accounts for 74.6 per cent of the total reserves of its central bank. Germany with 3,367 tonnes has 69.9 per cent of reserves in the form of gold and Italy with 2,451 tonnes has 65.5 per cent gold reserves. France, Russia, China, Japan and Switzerland too are in the top 10 list.

India had increased its gold holdings in 2018 also by 42.3 tonnes. India has been buying gold in trickles from the open market since Q3 2017. After buying 200 tonnes in November 2009, the reserves were stagnant at 557.7 tonnes for a long time.

However, even after adding 3.7 tonnes in March, the share of gold in the total reserves of RBI slipped to 6.1 per cent against 6.2 per cent earlier. The total reserves of RBI have moved up to $415,780 million in Q1 2019 against $399,116 million in Q4 2018, bringing down the share of gold.

In the first quarter of 2019, the value of the gold holdings went up to $25,512 million against $24,690 million in the fourth quarter of 2018.