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The financial crisis in
Europe is prompting some nations to repatriate their gold reserves to national
vaults. The Netherlands has moved US$5 billion worth of gold from New York, and
some are calling for similar action from France, Switzerland, and Germany.
RT.com reports an unmatched pace of money printing by major central banks
has boosted concerns in European countries over the safety of their gold reserves
abroad.
The Dutch central bank –
De Nederlandsche Bank – was one of the latest to make the move. The bank
announced last Friday that it moved a fifth of its total 612.5-metric-ton gold
reserve from New York to Amsterdam earlier in November.
It was done in an effort
to redistribute the gold stock in “a more balanced way,” and to boost
public confidence, the bank explained.
“With this adjustment the
Dutch Central Bank joins other banks that are keeping a larger share of their
gold supply in their own country,” the bank said in a statement. “In addition to
a more balanced division of the gold reserves...this may also contribute to a
positive confidence effect with the public.”
Dutch gold reserves are
now divided as follows: 31 percent in Amsterdam, 31 percent in New York, 20
percent in Ottawa, Canada and 18 percent in London.
Meanwhile, Switzerland
has organized the ‘Save Our Swiss Gold’ referendum, which is taking place on
November 30. If passed, it would force the Swiss National Bank to convert a fifth
of its assets into gold and repatriate all of its reserves from vaults in the
UK and Canada.
“The Swiss initiative is
merely part of an increasing global scramble towards gold and away from the
endless printing of money. Huge movements of gold are going on right now,” Koos Jansen, an
Amsterdam-based gold analyst for the Singaporean precious metal dealer
BullionStar, told the Guardian.
France has also recently
joined in on the trend, with the leader of the far-right National Front party
Marine Le Pen calling on the central bank to repatriate the country’s gold
reserves.
In an open letter to the
governor of the Banque de France, Christian Noyer, Le Pen also demanded an
audit of 2,435 tons of physical gold inventory.
Germany tried and failed
to adopt a similar path in early 2013 by announcing a plan to repatriate some
of its gold reserves back from the US and France.
The efforts fizzled out
this summer, when it was announced that Germany decided to leave US$635 billion
worth of gold in US vaults.
Germany only keeps about a
third of its gold at home. Forty-five percent is held in New York, 13 percent
in London, 11 percent in Paris, and only 31 percent in the Bundesbank in
Frankfurt.
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