by Lawrence Williams
Seeking Alpha
Central Bank gold buying has been put forward as one of the key gold demand elements in the metal’s supply/demand fundamentals. In reality, though, for the past couple of years or so there have only been two central bank gold buyers of any real significance – Russia and China – which between them had been announcing month-on-month purchases equivalent to around 400 tonnes a year, ever since China started announcing its monthly gold holding increases from the middle of 2015. There have been some other buyers, which have reported sporadic rises, or falls, in their reserves, while the only other regular gold buyer has been Kazakhstan, taking in about 2.5-3 tonnes a month which amounts to approximately the monthly production from its own gold mining industry.