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By Raushan Nurshayeva
Reuters
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
ASTANA, Kzaakhstan --
Kazakhstan's central bank plans to boost the share of gold in its gold and
foreign currency reserves to 20 percent from 14-15 percent, deputy bank
chairman Bisengali Tadzhiyakov
said on Wednesday.
Tadzhiyakov, who gave no time frame for the move, said last week Kazakhstan
planned to buy 22 tonnes of gold from local
producers, which at that time he estimated would boost the share of the metal
in the reserves to 15 percent from about 12 percent.
"We will buy from Kazzinc
Corp. 20 tonnes (of gold) in 2012, and a further
4.5 tonnes from Kazakhmys,"
he told journalists on Wednesday, reading out updated figures from his report
prepared for presentation in parliament. "The total volume is 24.5 tonnes."
The central bank also announced last week that it
would cut its holdings in the ailing euro currency to 25 percent from 30
percent.
Former Soviet Kazakhstan is one of a number of countries, including Russia,
Mexico, Colombia, and South Korea, that have built
up their official gold holdings in recent years.
Most buying has been seen from Asian and
emerging-market central banks, which typically hold a smaller proportion of
their currency reserves in bullion than developed economies.
Official-sector gold purchases rose to their highest
since the mid-1960s last year, metals consultancy GFMS has said, largely as
developing countries diversified their foreign exchange holdings in response
to the sovereign debt crisis.
Only one refinery in Kazakhstan, operated by Glencore-owned miner Kazzinc in
the east of the country, refines ingot to international standards. Copper
miner Kazakhmys refines gold at another plant to
meet domestic standards.
The central bank currently purchases all of the gold
produced in Kazakhstan. The country's net gold and foreign currency reserves
totaled $33.8 billion at the end of May, 17 percent more than at the end of
last year.
"Earlier we had between 7 percent and 9 percent
(of gold) in the structure of our reserves. Today it's already 14 or even
almost 15 percent," Tadzhiyakov said.
Kazakh central bank governor Grigory
Marchenko told reporters last week that the bank
had amassed more than 100 tonnes of gold in its
reserves.
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