Gold reserve

A gold reserve is the gold held by a central bank or nation intended as a store of value and as a guarantee to redeem promises to pay depositors, note holders (e.g., paper money), or trading peers, or to secure a currency.

Today, gold reserves are almost exclusively, albeit rarely, used in the settlement of international transactions.

At the end of 2004, central banks and investment funds held 19% of all above-ground gold as bank reserve assets.

It has been estimated that all the gold mined by the end of 2009 totaled 165,000 tonnes. At a price of US$1000/oz., exceeded in 2008 and 2009, one tonne of gold has a value of approximately US$32.15 million. The total value of all gold ever mined would exceed US$5 trillion at that valuation.

IMF gold holdings

As of June 2009, the International Monetary Fund held 3,217 tonnes (103.4 million oz.) of gold, which had been constant for several years. In Fall 2009, the IMF announced that it will sell one eighth of its holdings, a maximum of 12,965,649 fine troy ounces (403.3 tonnes) based on a new income model agreed upon in April 2008, and subsequently announced the sale of 200 tonnes to India, 10 tonnes to Sri Lanka, , a further 10 Metric tonnes of Gold was also sold to the Central Bank of Bangladesh in September 2010 and 2 tonnes to the Bank of Mauritius. These gold sales were conducted in stages at prevailing market prices.

The IMF maintains an internal book value of its gold that is far below market value. In 2000, this book value was SDR 35, or about US$47 per troy ounce. An attempt to revalue the gold reserve to today's value has met resistance for different reasons. For example, Canada is against the idea of revaluing the reserve, as it may be a prelude to selling the gold on the open market and therefore depressing gold prices.

Officially reported gold holdings

Map of countries by foreign currency reserves and gold minus external debt based on 2009 data from CIA Factbook

Gold reserves per capita

The International Monetary Fund regularly maintains statistics of national assets as reported by various countries. This data is used by the World Gold Council to periodically rank and report the gold holding of countries and official organizations.

The gold listed for each of the countries in the table may not be physically stored in the country listed, as central banks generally have not allowed independent audits of their reserves.

World official gold holding (December 2010)

Rank	Country/Organization	Gold (tonnes)	Gold's share of national forex reserves (%)
-	Euro Area	10,792.6	60.7%
1	United States	8,133.5	73.9%
2	Germany	3,401.8	70.3%
3	IMF	2,846.7	-
4	Italy	2,451.8	68.6%
5	France	2,435.4	67.2%
6	China	1,054.1	1.7%
7	Switzerland	1,040.1	16.4%
8	Russia	775.2	6.7%
9	Japan	765.2	3.0%
10	Netherlands	612.5	57.5%
11	India	557.7	8.1%
12	ECB	501.4	27.9%
13	Taiwan	423.6	4.6%
14	Portugal	382.5	81.1%
15	Venezuela	363.9	52.4%
16	Saudi Arabia	322.9	3.0%
17	United Kingdom	310.3	16.8%
18	Lebanon	286.8	27.6%
19	Spain	281.6	38.6%
20	Austria	280.0	56.2%
21	Belgium	227.5	36.8%
22	Philippines	175.9	14.0%
23	Algeria	173.6	4.5%
24	Libya	143.8	5.6%
25	Singapore	127.4	2.5%
26	Sweden	125.7	11.1%
27	South Africa	124.9	12.2%
28	BIS	120.0	-
29	Turkey	116.1	6.0%
30	Greece	111.7	78.7%
31	Romania	103.7	9.1%
32	Poland	102.9	4.5%
33	Thailand	99.5	2.5%
34	Australia	79.9	8.1%
35	Kuwait	79.0	13.5%
36	Egypt	75.6	8.7%
37	Indonesia	73.1	3.6%
38	Kazakhstan	67.3	10.0%
39	Denmark	66.5	3.3%
40	Pakistan	64.4	16.2%
41	Argentina	54.7	4.5%
42	Finland	49.1	20.6%
43	Bulgaria	39.9	9.9%
44	WAEMU	36.5	12.2%
45	Malaysia	36.4	1.5%
46	Belarus	35.1	24.5%
47	Peru	34.7	3.6%
48	Brazil	33.6	0.5%
49	Slovakia	31.8	65.4%
50	Bolivia	28.3	13.4%
51	Ukraine	27.2	3.5%
52	Ecuador	26.3	31.0%
53	Syria	25.8	-
54	Morocco	22.0	4.2%
55	Nigeria	21.4	-
56	Sri Lanka	17.5	11.9%
57	South Korea	14.4	0.2%
58	Cyprus	13.9	50.8%
59	Bangladesh	13.5	5.2%
60	Serbia	13.1	4.2%
61	Netherlands Antilles	13.1	36.3%
62	Jordan	12.8	4.3%
63	Czech Republic	12.7	1.2%
64	Cambodia	12.4	14.4%
65	Qatar	12.4	2.1%
66	Laos	8.8	36.5%
67	Latvia	7.7	4.0%
68	Mexico	7.5	0.3%
69	El Salvador	7.3	10.6%
70	CEMAC	7.1	2.3%
71	Guatemala	6.9	5.3%
72	Colombia	6.9	1.1%
73	Macedonia	6.8	12.7%
74	Tunisia	6.8	-
75	Ireland	6.0	11.8%
76	Lithuania	5.8	3.8%
77	Bahrain	4.7	-
78	Mauritius	3.9	6.8%
79	Canada	3.4	0.2%
80	Tajikistan	3.3	-
81	Slovenia	3.2	13.4%
82	Aruba	3.1	17.7%
83	Hungary	3.1	0.3%
84	Kyrgyzstan	2.6	6.5%
85	Luxembourg	2.2	11.7%
86	Hong Kong	2.1	0.0%
87	Suriname	2.0	11.4%
88	Iceland	2.0	2.0%
89	Papua New Guinea	2.0	2.9%
90	Papua New Guinea	1.9	0.8%
91	Albania	1.6	2.8%
92	Yemen	1.6	1.1%
93	Cameroon	0.9	1.2%
94	Mongolia	0.9	2.4%
95	Honduras	0.7	-
96	Paraguay	0.7	0.7%
97	Dominican Republic	0.6	1.0%
98	Gabon	0.4	0.8%
99	Malawi	0.4	6.2%
100	Central African Republic	0.3	8.4%
101	Chad	0.3	2.4%
102	Republic of the Congo	0.3	0.4%
103	Uruguay	0.3	0.1%
104	Fiji	0.2	-
105	Estonia	0.2	0.3%
106	Chile	0.2	0.0%
107	Malta	0.2	1.6%
108	Costa Rica	0.1	0.1%
109	Haiti	0.0	0.1%
110	Burundi	0.0	0.5%
111	Oman	0.0	0.0%
112	Comoros	0.0	-
113	Kenya	0.0	0.0%
-	World	30,562.5	-

Privately held gold

As of October 2009, gold exchange-traded funds held 1,750 tonnes of gold for private and institutional investors.

Gold Holdings Corp. a publicly listed gold company estimates that the amount of in-ground verified gold resources currently controlled by publicly traded gold mining companies is roughly 50,000 tonnes.

Examples of privately held gold

Rank	Organization	Gold (Tonnes)	Reference
1	SPDR Gold Shares	1,305.69
2	iShares Gold Trust	99.72
3	Central Fund of Canada	46.79
4	BullionVault (storage)	21.45
5	GoldMoney (storage)	16.22

World gold holdings

World gold holdings (2008) (Source: World Gold Council)

Holding	Percentage
Jewelry	52%
Central banks	18%
Investment (bars, coins)	16%
Industrial	12%
Unaccounted	2%

See also

• Foreign exchange reserves
• Sovereign wealth fund
• United States Bullion Depository
• Federal Reserve Bank of New York
• Gold as an investment
• Peak Gold
• Strategic Petroleum Reserve
• Moscow gold, the reserves of the Bank of Spain sent to the Soviet Union during the Spanish Civil War.