Russia's
gold reserves rose to 1,944 tons as of June 2018, up from less than
500 tons just a decade ago. The holdings, amounting to over 17
percent of Russia's total foreign reserves, were shored up in part by
offloading some $77 billion worth worth of its US Treasury bills,
bonds and notes over the last six months or so.
In
recent years, the central banks of a number of countries have
rejected the long-accepted practice of keeping their gold abroad.
Most recently, the Turkish Central Bank began withdrawing its gold
from the US Federal Reserve and shipping it back to Ankara at an
accelerated pace. Before that, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and
Venezuela made similar moves, repatriating all or part of their
physical gold reserves from New York or other Western Central Banks.
Hungary and Belgium have also mulled bringing their gold home for
safekeeping.
Gold
repatriation operations have not been without their difficulties. In
2013, when Germany began the repatriation of its gold from the US,
so-called "logistical difficulties" saw just five tons of
some 300 brought home that year, giving rise to theories that the US
was holding up the process. When the Dutch Central Bank launched
their repatriation program, they did so on the sly, shaving their Fed
gold holdings by 122.5 tons in 2014 and only announcing that they did
so after the fact. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, perhaps
sensing problems with Turkey's repatriation efforts, proposed
ditching dollar loans in favor of loans "based on gold" at
the recent G20 meeting in April.
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