India’s Reserve Bank Joins Hungary and Poland by Adding 21.8 tons of Gold to Their Stack

What’s interesting, at least to me, is the fact that the President of the BRICS alliance told India they needed to increase their gold holdings in order to be a full member of the BRICS Alliance. India listened. Also of note, is the fact that Russia and China have agreed to open the BRICS Gold Market in both Beijing and Moscow for the specific purpose of assisting the other BRICS nations in their gold acquisitions. What role the BRICS Gold Market has played is unknown, but we know it will play a role in the near future.

The Reserve Bank of India bought 21.8 tons of Gold in Jan-Sep, with 13.7 tons being bought in the Jul-Sep quarter alone, attributing the trend to enhancement of the long-term stability of reserves amid rising concerns over global economic and political turmoil, according to the World Gold Council (WGC).

Global central banks bought over 148.4 tons of Gold in Jul-Sep, up 22% from the same period last year. The purchases were the highest since 2015, WGC added.

WGC has estimated Jul-Sep Gold demand in India, the second largest consumer of the precious metal in the world, at 183.2 tons, up 10% from a year ago, as fall in prices to multi-month lows in the early part of the quarter encouraged people to buy jewellery as well as invest in the metal.

The demand for jewellery rose 10% to 148.8 tons and investment demand rose 11% to 34.4 tons in Jul-Sep.

In Jan-Sep, however, the overall demand for Gold in India was down by 1% on year to 523.9 tons. Though the current quarter is normally a vibrant period for Gold purchases in India, the seasonal spike in demand could be moderate in this festival season due to factors like lack of liquidity, rising Indian prices and impending elections in some key states impacting trade logistics. Source

With the newly elected, populist, President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, it will be interesting to see how 2019 plays out with national gold acquisitions. Will Brazil, as a member of the BRICS join the other members of the alliance and add to their gold holdings? We have already seen, in 2018, Hungary and Poland add to their gold holdings, while they are not members of the BRICS Alliance, neither country had added to their gold holdings for some time – in the case of Hungary it had been decades. This is to say nothing of the ongoing gold acquisitions by Russia and Kazakistan along with the citizens of India and China continually adding to their gold holdings.

This always brings us back to one of our all time favorite questions – where is all this additional physical gold coming from and now we can update this question where will the gold come from to satisfy what could potentially be a boon for physical gold acquisitions in 2019?