Central bank buying11 Sep 2025 16:08
From Fxstreet.com 4th Sep
Despite the slowdown in central bank buying, the World Gold Council remains bullish.
“We maintain our view that central banks will continue to add gold to their reserves. Our Central Bank Gold Reserves Survey 2025 shows that respondents overwhelmingly (95 percent) expect global central bank gold reserves to increase over the next 12 months, while 43 percent believe that their own gold reserves will also increase over the same period. Notably, none of the respondents anticipate a decline in their gold reserves.”
On net, central banks officially increased their gold holdings by 1,044.6 tonnes in 2024. It was the 15th consecutive year of expanding gold reserves.
Last year was the third-largest expansion of central bank gold reserves on record, coming in just 6.2 tonnes lower than in 2023 and 91 tonnes lower than the all-time high set in 2022. (1,136 tonnes). 2022 was the highest level of net purchases on record, dating back to 1950, including since the suspension of dollar convertibility into gold in 1971.
To put that into context, central bank gold reserves increased by an average of just 473 tonnes annually between 2010 and 2021.
World Gold Council analysts expect the trend to continue, with buying “close to the range seen over the past three years on continued elevated trade-related risks and uncertainty premia in U.S. assets.”
The WGC also noted that “diversification” with “a reduction of U.S. assets” is one of the factors driving central bank gold buying. In other words, de-dollarization.