India brings back 100 metric tonnes of gold from UK, fills RBI vaults
This is one of the largest movements of gold made by the country since 1991, when it was moved out of India as a result of pledging of a large portion of gold to deal with a foreign exchange crisis.
Mumbai: According to sources today, India transferred 100 metric tonnes of its gold that was kept in UK vaults to domestic vaults in FY24.
This is one of the largest movements of gold made by the country since 1991, when it was moved out of India as a result of pledging of a large portion of gold to deal with a foreign exchange crisis.
According to official data, the country’s total gold holdings increased by 27.46 metric tonnes to 822 metric tonnes in FY24.
According to sources who spoke with Press Trust of India, a significant amount of the valuable commodity is kept overseas. They also mentioned that India, like other nations, maintains its holdings with the Bank of England.
The movement of 100 metric tonnes of gold to India has taken the total quantity stored locally to over 408 metric tonnes, meaning local and foreign holdings are now almost equally divided. Over 308 metric tonnes of gold is kept to back notes issued in India, while 100.28 tonnes is held locally as assets of the banking department, according to thethe central bank’s FY24 annual report, which was made public on Thursday. Of the total gold reserves, 413.79 metric tonnes are kept abroad, the annual report said. Given the gold purchases in the past few years, it was decided to reduce the holdings abroad which is part of standard review processes, sources told Press Trust of India. In 2009, India bought 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund and since then it has been buying the precious commodity from the secondary market as part of its foreign exchange asset diversification efforts.
