The updated list of the World Gold Council contains data for March-April 2020. Among the TOP-10 countries, there are some changes in gold reserves. WGC received most of the data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
During the reporting period, Germany decreased its reserves by 0.6 tons compared to the previous month. Now the country's official gold reserve is 3.363.6 tons. The Bundesbank regularly gives the Ministry of Finance gold for minting commemorative coins. As for Russia, on April 1, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation stopped buying yellow precious metals for international reserves. In the WGC list, the gold reserves of the Russian Federation decreased even by 0.5 tons to 2.298.7 tons.
Some CIS countries have become sellers of gold. For example, Kazakhstan sold 11.2 tons of precious metal, and Kyrgyzstan lost 2.6 tons. Uzbekistan reduced its reserves by 2.2 tons. Ecuador became another major seller of gold. Its gold reserve decreased by 7.5 tons in the framework of the swap transaction to 14.5 tons. There is an assumption that the country will be able to return this gold after the transaction is completed. It also follows from the WGC that Sri Lanka has already sold 12.9 tons of yellow precious metals this year.
The largest buyer of gold for the reporting period was India. She bought for reserves 11.2 tons of gold. Now its gold reserve is 653 tons. Turkey’s reserves have grown by 38.8 tons. Now this country owns 524 tons of gold, which also includes gold from commercial banks that keep it with the Central Bank as collateral.
The WGC reports that global official gold reserves currently amount to 34.891.5 tons, up 32.17 tons from the previous period. You need to understand that central banks report changes in their reserves late. There are also a number of countries that keep gold data secret. These include Iran, Israel and North Korea. China's gold reserves remained unchanged again. The last change was recorded in September 2019.