gold: CB holdings, production rates: some numbers

Posted on by tiger40490 rendered_on [ Thu, 6 Mar 2025 ] 18:06 UTC

 

— Central banks hold gold mostly as a supplement to OFR [official foreign reserve]. These assets are owned “ultimately” by citizens (not “taxpayers” [3]), but strictly owned by the central government. See other bposts.

[3] some tax payers are foreign nationals; some citizens have insufficient income and never pay tax, such as my kids and my dear wife.

  • CB of US: 8133 tonne, highest in the world [1]
  • CB of Germany: 3358 tonne, 2nd highest in the world
  • IMF: 2810 tonne, 3rd among CBs
  • CB of China: 1948 tonne[1], The IMF and gold.org data shows both total reserve and gold holdings of each country (excluding IMF). China is #1 in total reserve, #6 in terms of gold holdings. (myth: “China CB has the highest gold holding??”)
  • CB of SG holds about 153 tonne of gold as reserve [1]. See every S’pore dollar is backed by hard asset #
  • my two pieces of gold jewelry : 9.15 g + 1.85 g
  • most of the 5580 tonnes of gold held in the Bank of England vaults is held in custody, on behalf of central banks
  • LBMA vaults held 3870 tonnes at end of 2020
  • GoldChartsRUs.com chart shows ETFs held 2575 tonnes in LBMA vaults.

[1] according to 2022 data on gold.org

As of 2019, Out of aggregate total of 190,000 tonnes, 32,000 tones were held by top 40 central banks. S$80k * 190 Million kilos = S$ 15 trillion.

— allocation by industry.. Using earlier data, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_holdings estimated that out of the 187,000 tonnes,

  1. 49% is in jewelries,
  2. 19% in financial investments (bar/coins, excluding CB holding),
  3. 17% by CB (i.e. central banks) as supplement to ORF, around 32,000 tonnes
  4. 12% for industrial use of gold.

— US government site https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-much-gold-has-been-found-world?qt-news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products

  • About 244,000 metric tons of gold has been discovered (not “produced”) to date
  • .. 187,000 metric tons historically produced, but some might be damaged beyond repair.
  • .. current underground reserves of 57,000 metric tons
  • All of the gold discovered thus far would fit in a cube that is 28 meters wide on every side.

— production rate: 3500 tonne/Y, excluding secondary sources (old scrap)

https://www.northernminer.com/news/global-gold-production-will-average-2-5-annually-from-2020-2029/1003821667/ cites a Fitch forecast.