Scepticism aimed towards official claims of national gold holdings is now a common theme so in an attempt to bolster an image of stability, Bundesbank has released a complete list of Germany’s near 3,400t gold reserves. The report, which is to be updated on an annual basis, specifies the location, status and identity of the entirety of the holdings which are worth a little over 166.8 billion Australian dollars. Germany’s reserves amount to the second highest in the world next to the US which has incidentally also suffered scepticism regarding the legitimacy and accuracy of reserve accounting. Historically, Germany has held a large percentage (nearly 70%) of its holdings abroad. Half of the reserves are vaulted in the US with the remainder of the overseas allocation stored in London and Paris. This is a policy born of the fear of invasion during the cold war period and has in recent years been changing. By 2020, more than 50% of German reserves are to be stored in Frankfurt. All French stores are to be repatriated entirely and the US vaulted metal will be reduced. We’ve reported a number of times on the difficulties involved with the latter, but ultimately Germany’s current policy means that over the next few years, 700 metric tons will be in transit under highly secretive arrangements. Interestingly, the 1966 French repatriation of US vaulted gold involved taking physical possession in Manhattan by submarine. Difficulties with the US extraction remain. Germany first asked the US for about 350 tonnes of its gold held in New York back in early 2013 at which point they were apparently told that it would take 7 years to achieve that. That year saw just 10% of the requested amount returned and 2014 saw an additional 20%. The Bundesbank release represents rare transparency in an area that is typically shrouded in a veil of assumption and speculation. A good example of this is China where evidence of underreporting is substantial. Some argue that such clarity places increasing pressure on the US to act similarly with respect to the auditing of gold holdings and it will be interesting to observe the financial power dynamic if public auditing becomes more widely adopted.
Glad to hear they really do have a mass amount of gold stored with us. Unfortunately they're gonna need to spend a bunch of it on the refugees they're taking in.
It would surprise me if in the initial agreement with Germany, the US agreed to return it in any short period of time, like 5 years or less. Germany figured it was a safe place of storage and probably agreed to an extended orderly return process. We could audit the gold held by the US 100 times, under different witnesses, and we would still hear about the 'missing gold conspiracy story by the bullion pushers. China is more likely 'under-reporting' so that their populace can not see the gold stolen from their 'gold saving accounts' by the BOC which were ways of robbing their citizens.
If anybody here wants to see further details, the English version of yesterday's media release (with a link to the list) is here: http://www.bundesbank.de/Redaktion/EN/Topics/2015/2015_10_07_gold.html Trying to connect the issues of the gold reserves and the refugees is pretty bad style, I think. By the way, the Bundesbank itself was not terribly keen on bringing gold bars from the non-euro locations (UK, US) to Germany, as it makes sense to leave them close to where they were acquired ... Christian
Yikes, dredging this old thing up. I guess anything to SELL some Gold. I really don't understand why the stackers are so concerned about the Germans getting their Gold. I mean the Germans have no issues why should you? The truth is, for insurance purposes, and security reasons they are shipping it in small quanties. They last I read they are sending it out like twice a week.There are NO difficulties in the US extraction. That is simply Bullion pumpers just made up. It really is a sleazy industry.
