Central banks tend to transfer their purchases of physical gold to the homeland.. for this reason!

2023-07-12 10:51:03

gold reserves

gold

Survey.. The yuan will not become a substitute for the dollar as a reserve currency

Dubai – Al Arabiya.net

Posted on: July 12, 2023: 01:41 PM GST Last updated: July 12, 2023: 02:51 PM GST

After the sanctions imposed by the United States and Western countries on Russian assets, central banks and global sovereign wealth funds tended to transfer their purchases of physical gold to the homeland, and not to keep it in financial centers such as London and New York, as was the case in the past.

According to the World Gold Council report issued last February, central banks have expanded their purchases of gold for the twelfth year in a row, as they bought 1136 metric tons of gold last year alone, which is a new record.

golden in my country

About 40% of central banks and sovereign wealth funds in the “Invesco” survey said that the new shift is driven by their fears of freezing their assets in the West, as happened with “Russia” after the invasion of Ukraine.

Just under 70% of central banks have decided to move their gold purchases home, compared to 50% in the 2020 survey.

An unnamed central bank in the West told Invesco that the institution increased its gold holdings 8 to 10 years ago and used to keep them in London. “But we have now transferred our gold reserves back to our country to keep them safe – and their role now is to be a safe asset,” the central bank said.

Escape from dollarization

On the other hand, the US dollar has been the reserve currency in the world since World War II, as it played an important role in the global trade and financial system. But sweeping sanctions against Russia that have kicked the country out of the US dollar-dominated global financial system have so spooked other countries that they are now forging reserve currencies for trade.

However, central banks generally agree that there is no clear alternative to the greenback as the world’s dominant reserve currency, according to the Invesco survey.

The survey indicated that the Chinese yuan is not the alternative in the short term either. Only 18% of respondents said they believed the yuan would become a “real reserve currency within 5 years” – down from 29% last year who agreed with this approach.

“People have been looking for alternatives to the dollar and the euro for a long time and would actually go for it if there were any suitable alternatives,” an unnamed emerging market central bank told Invesco.