China Confirms It Is "Mystery" Massive Gold Buyer With First Official Purchase In 3 Years

Central banks bought a net 399.3 tonnes of gold in the July-September period, more than quadrupling on the year, according to the November report by the World Gold Council.

According to the Nikkei, which paraphrased verbatim what we had previously said, with central banks snapping up gold this year amid uncertainty which ones are behind most of that shopping spree, "speculation emerged that China is a big player." And citing analysts, the Nikkei then goes on to suggest that seeing how Russia has been hit by monetary sanctions by the West, "China and some other countries must be hurrying to reduce dependence on the dollar."

"Seeing how Russia's overseas assets were frozen after its invasion of Ukraine, anti-Western countries are eager to accumulate gold holdings on hand," said Emin Yurumazu, a Japan-based economist from Turkey.

Those familiar with China's gold buying patterns are all too aware that Beijing has made similar moves in the past. After keeping radio-silent since 2009, Beijing shocked the market in 2015 when it disclosed it had boosted gold holdings by about 600 tonnes. It has not reported any activity since September 2019.

"China likely bought a substantial amount of gold from Russia," added market analyst Itsuo Toshima. According to Toshima, the People's Bank of China likely bought a portion of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation's gold holdings of over 2,000 tonnes.