Gold Reserve

A Gold Reserve is a government monetary reserve composed of gold bullion.

• Context:
  • It can be held by central banks as a store of value and a means to secure currency.
  • It can serve as a guarantee for redeeming national currency notes or other liabilities.
  • It can be used in international trade or financial transactions between countries.
  • It can be managed to influence economic policies, such as inflation control or monetary stability.
  • It can fluctuate in value based on the current market price of gold.
  • It can be measured in terms of tonnes, with each country's reserves varying widely.
  • ...
• Example(s):
  • United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox (part of the U.S. Government Monetary Reserves), estimated at around 4,583 tonnes, valued at over 280 billion USD, and managed typically by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
  • China's Gold Reserves (part of China's monetary reserves), estimated at over 2,000 tonnes, and managed typically by the People's Bank of China.
  • Germany's Gold Reserves (part of Germany's monetary reserves), estimated at around 3,370 tonnes, stored in multiple locations, including New York and London, and managed typically by the Bundesbank.
  • Russia's Gold Reserves (part of Russia's monetary reserves), estimated at around 2,300 tonnes, rapidly increasing due to national policies on accumulating gold, and managed typically by the Central Bank of Russia.
  • India's Gold Reserves (part of India's monetary reserves), estimated at around 700 tonnes, stored domestically and abroad, and managed typically by the Reserve Bank of India.
  • Switzerland's Gold Reserves (part of Switzerland's monetary reserves), estimated at around 1,040 tonnes, primarily stored within the country, and managed typically by the Swiss National Bank.
  • United Kingdom's Gold Reserves (part of UK's monetary reserves), estimated at around 310 tonnes, stored in multiple international locations, and managed typically by the Bank of England.
  • Japan's Gold Reserves (part of Japan's monetary reserves), estimated at around 765 tonnes, and managed typically by the Bank of Japan.
  • ...
  • Texas' Gold Reserves, estimated at approximately 700 tonnes of gold held in vaults.
• Counter-Example(s):
  • an Foreign-Exchange Reserve.
  • a Sovereign Wealth Fund that holds diverse assets beyond gold.
  • a Government Bond as a non-physical form of reserve asset.
• See: Central Bank, Store of Value, Depositor, Paper Money, Currency, Troy Ounce.

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References

2015

• (Wikipedia, 2015) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserve Retrieved:2015-7-24.
  • A gold reserve is the gold held by a national central bank, intended as a store of value and as a guarantee to redeem promises to pay depositors, note holders (e.g. paper money), or trading peers, or to secure a currency.

    It has been estimated that all the gold mined by the end of 2011 totalled 171,300 tonnes. At a price of US$1,500 per troy ounce, reached on 12 April 2013, one tonne of gold has a value of approximately US$48.2 million. The total value of all gold ever mined would exceed US$8.2 trillion at that valuation.

    However, there are varying estimates of the total amount of gold mined to date, mainly because gold has been mined for thousands of years around the world. Another reason is that some countries are not particularly open about how much gold they are mining. In addition, it is difficult to account for gold output in illegal mining activities.

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