The Russian Central Bank (RCB) added a further 25 metric tonnes of gold bullion to their official reserves in March. The figure is up from the 9 metric tonnes bought in February, but well below the 31 metric tonnes bought in January.
Since 2016 the RCB has been the largest buyer of gold, adding well over 200 metric tonnes of bullion. This tells us two important things. Firstly, the Russians believe the gold price is undervalued and secondly gold is a better investment than traditional assets such as equities, bonds and other paper assets. The RCB now owns 1,680 metric tonnes of gold, the seventh largest sovereign gold hoard. The United Kingdom lags well behind in 17th position with a meager 310.3 tonnes of gold. Between 1999 and 2002 Gordon Brown sold over 395 tonnes of gold in a series of auctions at an average price of $275 per ounce.
Russia is also slowly reducing their U.S Treasury Bond holdings In the last two years, the RCB has reduced their exposure from $131.8 Billion to $66.5 Billion.
