Serbia Joins Central Bank Gold-Buying Spree

Seeking financial and economic safety and stability, Serbia has joined the global central bank gold-buying spree.

National Bank of Serbia Governor Jorgovanka Tabakovic recently announced that the bank purchased nine tons of gold in October, raising the country’s reserves to just over 30 tons.

We have completed gold purchase transactions and Serbia is safer today with 30.4 tons of gold worth around 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion).”

Tabakovic acted on the advice of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, who suggested the gold purchase as a way to increase the country’s financial stability.

The National Bank of Serbia paid $1,503 per ounce for the yellow metal.

Gold now makes up 10% of Serbian reserves.

Serbia is the third Eastern European nation to buy large amounts of gold. Poland added 100 tons of gold to its reserves through the first half of 2019, saying, “Gold is the ‘most reserve’ of reserve assets: it diversifies the geopolitical risk and is a kind of anchor of trust, especially in times of tension and crises.” And late last year, the Hungarian central bank announced it boosted its gold reserves 10-fold. A statement by the bank said the increase in gold stocks was intended to increase financial stability and strengthen market confidence. 

In keeping with the historical role of gold, it remains one of the safest instruments in the world, which, even under normal market conditions, exposes its stability and confidence.”

We’ve reported extensively on gold purchases by central banks, particularly China and Russia as those countries seek to diversify reserves and decrease their exposure to the US dollar.

Central banks are buying gold for many of the same reasons you should consider adding gold to your portfolio. Click to learn more.

So far in 2019, central banks have purchased 547.5 tons of gold on a net basis That represents a 12% increase year-on-year. This continues a trend we saw through 2018. In total, the world’s central banks accumulated 651.5 tons of gold last year. The World Gold Council noted that 2018 marked the highest level of annual net central bank gold purchases since the suspension of dollar convertibility into gold in 1971, and the second-highest annual total on record.

Peter Schiff has talked about central bank gold-buying. He has noted that the US went off the gold standard in 1971, but he thinks the world is going to go back on it.

The days where the dollar is the reserve currency are numbered and we’re going back to basics. You know, everything old is new again. Gold was money in the past and it will be money again in the future, and central banks that are smart enough to read that writing on the wall are increasing their gold reserves now.”

Ron Paul made a similar point in a recent episode of the Liberty report. He said foreign central banks are increasingly gravitating to sound money like gold and ripping themselves away from the Fed’s dollar.