very astute points Fosfate. The following touches on the impact of a rising gold price on CB's willingness to part with the gold, soon they will be buyers and not sellers; making the IMF gold a very desired commodity/currency
Central Bank net gold sales show huge drop in first half 2009
A report by GFMS for Societe Generale suggests the volume of Central Bank gold sales this year is likely to be among the lowest on record.
Author: Lawrence Williams
Posted: Tuesday , 04 Aug 2009
LONDON – In a report released Monday, precious metals consultancy GFMS, for Societe Generale, looked at the recent rate and volume of gold sales from official sources and concluded that in the first half of the current year the net sales volume was a relatively minuscule 39 tonnes – down a massive 73% year on year. Indeed in the second quarter, GFMS estimates that banks were net buyers of gold after being net sellers in the first quarter.
In effect, the majority of these sales came from within the Central Bank Gold Agreement, with its signatories selling some 92 tonnes, but this was offset by net purchases from Central Banks and institutions in other countries which turned out to be net buyers of around 56 tonnes. There were also a few tonnes of sales from banks outside the CBGA. GFMS notes that all these figures may be subject to alteration due to the lag that often exists between Central Bank activity in the gold market taking place and it being identified.
The biggest sellers of gold in the period included France which had announced some time back that it would sell 600 tonnes over the life of the five-year CBGA, which ends on September 26th. France sold some 44 tonnes in the first five months of the year and it is likely, says GFMS, that it would also have sold a little more in June. With a total of 576 tonnes of sales over nearly 5 years under the Agreement up until May that left only a further 24 tonnes to sell June to September.
The second biggest seller was the European Central Bank with 35.5 tonnes.
There are a few Central Banks which still have gold to sell under announced gold sales programmes, but these in total amount to very little, and GFMS reckons that in the second half of 2009 Central Bank sales will remain fairly low at around 100 tonnes which would mean that net official sector sales in 2009 overall, at some 140 tonnes, would be at the lowest level since 1994’s trough of 130 tonnes.
