China expands gold reserves at central banks for the fifth month

China boosted its gold reserves for a fifth straight month, extending efforts by the world’s central banks to boost their holdings of the precious metal, as per media reports.
According to World Gold Council (WGC), many countries have been building up stockpiles of bullion amid heightened geopolitical risks and high inflation. Central-bank demand rose for a second year in 2022, and the biggest buyers in January of this year were Turkey, China and Kazakhstan.
The People’s Bank of China raised its holdings by about 18 tons in March, while the Total stockpiles now sit at about 2,068 tons, after growing by about 102 tons in the four months before March.
This flurry of purchases by China’s central bank is the first since a ten-month run that ended in September 2019. Prior to that, the last wave of inflows ended in late-2016.
The price of gold reached its highest in more than a year on 5 April 2023. The banking crisis and growing worries about global growth have boosted demand for the yellow metal. Meanwhile, China’s end-March foreign currency reserves rose to $3.1839 tn, up by $50.7 bn from the month earlier.

Aruna Gaitonde, Editor in Chief of the Asian Bureau, Rough&Polished