Central Bank Bought Record Gold Reserves in 2012

Central banks scooped up more gold in 2012 than they have annually in nearly half a century as they sought to diversify reserves, the World Gold Council (WGC) said on Thursday.

Central banks bought 534.6 metric tons of the precious metal last year – the most since 1964 – led by Russia, Brazil and Iraq. Net purchases by central banks accounted for 12 percent of overall demand in 2012, compared with a 10 percent share in 2011.

“Countries actively adding to their official gold holdings remains heavily concentrated in developing markets, which partly reflects the scale of growth in the reserves of these markets over recent years,” WGC wrote its latest quarterly report on gold demand trends.

via CNBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza