Over the course of thousands of years of civilization, human beings on Earth have excavated a total of over 150,000 tons of gold from the planet. At present, about 40% of the over 150,000 tons of gold is used as negotiable financial reserve assets in the world’s financial circulation, and the total amount is about 60,000 tons.
Among them, more than 30,000 tons of gold are official financial strategic reserves held by each country, and more than 20,000 tons of gold are private financial gold reserves held by private and private companies worldwide.
The other 60% or so of gold exists as a general commodity, such as jewelry, historical relics, electronic chemistry and other industrial products.
It should be noted that a large part of the 60 percent of gold can be converted into financial assets owned by the private sector and used in the financial circulation.
According to the WorldGoldCouncil (WorldGoldCouncil), as of October 2003, the top 40 countries in the world have official gold reserves as follows (little change from the current data) :
According to the data of official gold reserves of countries provided by the World Gold Council, gold is still the main body of official financial strategic reserves of many countries.
The world’s declared official gold reserves now total 32,700 tons, or about 13 times the world’s current annual gold production.
Among the countries and organizations with official gold reserves of more than 1,000 tons: the United States, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland and the International Monetary Fund.
Among these countries and organizations, the United States has the largest gold reserves at 8,149 tons, or 24.9 percent of the world’s total official gold reserves.
The top ten Western countries account for more than 75% of the world’s official gold reserves.
Reserves of more than 100 tons of 32 countries, regions or organizations mainly concentrated in Europe and North America, Asian and African countries accounted for only a few;
A total of 47 countries, regions or organizations, mostly in Asia, Africa and Latin America, hold less than 10 tons of gold, accounting for just 1.43 percent of U.S. gold holdings.
From this data, it can be seen that countries with strong political and economic strength also have more gold reserves, which indicates that gold reserves are still a sign of a country’s comprehensive strength.
The ratio of international gold reserves in the total national financial strategic reserves also shows that gold is still the main body of national strategic reserves and reserves are still valued by developed countries in the world.
The gold reserves of the United States account for 56.7% of its total national strategic reserves, while other developed countries such as Germany 37.6%, France 47.1%, Italy 47.8%, Switzerland 38.2%, the Netherlands 46.6% also highlight the important role of gold reserves.
Special attention should be paid to the fact that some countries have adopted the policy of storing gold among their people according to their actual national conditions.
India, for example, has an official international gold reserve of only 357.8 tonnes and a modest 7.8% of the country’s total strategic reserves.
However, according to relevant data, India’s total civilian gold reserves are at least 10,000 tons, and its civilian gold reserves are at least 110,000 tons.
India remains the world’s largest gold market, with consumption of around 600-800 tonnes a year.
India is not a major gold producer and buys most of the gold it consumes each year on the international market.
With India’s rapid economic development in recent years, the amount of gold imports has also increased significantly.
China’s official international gold reserves are about 600 tons (in 2004, there has been no big change in quantity), accounting for less than 2% of China’s international financial reserves, and the ratio of gold reserves and international reserves is obviously low.
However, the figure of 600 tons is the official data released by China. According to empirical inference, 600 tons may be an inaccurate figure. Based on various factors, the actual amount of gold reserves owned by China’s official government is greater than 600 tons, and the gold reserves are about 1,000 tons.
The above is about the “international gold reserves and gold resources distribution” related introduction