by Ronan Manly, BullionStar:
Poland’s central bank, Narodowy Bank Polski (NBP), is officially the biggest central bank gold buyer in the second quarter of 2023, having accumulated a massive 48.52 tonnes of monetary gold between April, May and June of this year. This is the first time in nearly 4 years since the Polish central bank last bought gold for its reserves.
This large concentrated buying by the NBP during Q2 also puts the Polish central bank in third place globally for gold buying during the first half of 2023, behind China and Singapore.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
As a reminder, China claims to have bought 57.85 tonnes of gold during Q1 2023, and 45.1 tonnes during Q2, for a first half 2023 total of 102.95 tonnes. Singapore claims to have purchased 68.74 tonnes of gold during Q1 2023, and a net 3 tonnes during Q2, for a first half 2023 total of 71.71 tonnes.
Poland world’s largest gold buyer in Q2 2023
This means that Singapore was the largest central bank gold buyer over the 3 month period Q1 2023, with China in second place, and that Poland was the largest central bank gold buyer over the 3 month period Q2 2023, with China in second place. It also means that China was the largest gold buyer over the 6 month period H1 2023, with Singapore in second place and Poland in third place.
In terms of data (using queries from the IMF’s International Financial Statistics (IFS) database), as of the end of March 2023, the Polish central bank held 7.35 mn ozs of gold (228.62 tonnes). The Poles then purchased 14.93 tonnes during April, 19.91 tonnes during May, and another 13.69 tonnes during June, for a three-month purchase total of 48.52 tonnes (1.56 mn ozs). This boosted Poland’s monetary gold reserves to 277.14 tonnes, which now represents 9.4% of Poland’s total reserve assets (FX, Gold and IMF SDRs).
While there has been much written in these pages and across the financial media about China’s and Singapore’s gold buying and the affinity of Asian central banks for physical gold, the presence of Poland’s central bank might at first glance raise some eyebrows given that Poland is firmly part of the superstate European Union.
However, remembering that Poland has it’s own currency (the zloty) and is not beholden to the Eurozone, and that the Polish central bank bought 125.7 tonnes of gold over 2018-2019 (see below), the fact that Poland’s independently minded central bank has returned to substantial gold buying shouldn’t be surprising, especially given that its upcoming gold buying plan (see below) was telegraphed in advance. The only thing slightly puzzling is that the timing of Poland’s new gold purchases is slightly behind the telegraphed ‘schedule’.
50 Tonnes Down, 50 To Go
Given the plans by the Pole central bank (see below), this new gold buying by Poland’s NBP during 2023, so far at nearly 50 tonnes, may be only half-way through, with at least another 50 tonnes of gold purchases to occur over the next few months.
As a recap, Poland only held 23.2 tonnes of gold (746,463 ozs) up until 1998, 721,000 ozs of which was invested with (lent to) LBMA bullion banks. In 1998, the NBP decided to buy another 74.5 tonnes of gold (2.396 mn ozs) using the Bank of England in London, so as to avail of opportunities to lend gold in the London gold lending market. This purchase brought the NBP’s gold holdings up to 97.75 tonnes. See archived NBP brochure here. Around the same time, the NBP purchases another 5.17 tonnes of gold, increasingly it’s total to 102.9 tonnes (nearly all of which was in name at the Bank of England but lent to bullion banks).
Another 20 years passed and then suddenly in 2018, the NBP started buying gold again. Over the 4 month period July to October 2018, the Polish central bank bought 25.7 tonnes of gold, bringing its total to 128.6 tonnes. Then over the 3 month period May to July 2019, the NBP came back to the market, buying a massive additional 100 tonnes of gold using the gold buying services of the London interbank market and the Bank of England.
