New Zealand's (non-existant) gold

Of interest when countries are trying to build up their gold reserves and to repatriate their gold.

Not for New Zealand. We're still borrowing as if there is no tomorrow (there isn't) and flogging off our assets

Look at the figures, especially for China and Russia, which have increased their holdings immensely since this article was written in 2009.

How much gold does the Reserve Bank of New Zealand have

http://goldsurvivalguide.co.nz/how-much-gold-does-the-reserve-bank-of-new-zealand-have/

 Dec 05, 2009

We’ve had the odd query from other New Zealanders asking “With all the recent reports of ‎various Central Banks of the world buying gold, just how much gold does the Reserve ‎Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) actually have?”‎

So we thought we should publish the specifics.  And we’re sorry to report folks, the news isn’t so great.‎

The RBNZ website has the following table:  (We’ve highlighted the gold related part in blue.  And the full table can be found here on the RBNZ website.)

New Zealand’s International Reserves and ‎Foreign Currency Liquidity

30 Sep 2009
(Information is disclosed in NZD 000′s)
I.	Official reserve assets and other foreign currency assets (approximate market value)
A.	Official reserve assets		19,994,933
	(1) Foreign currency reserves (in convertible foreign currencies)		17,074,379
		(a) Securities	15,079,813
		of which: issuer headquartered in reporting country but located abroad	-
		(b) total currency and deposits with:	1,994,566
		(i) other national central banks, BIS and IMF	1,912,062
		(ii) banks headquartered in the reporting country	-
		of which: located abroad	-
		(iii) banks headquartered outside the reporting country	82,504
		of which: located in the reporting country	-
	(2) IMF reserve position		382,538
	(3) SDRs		1,598,884
	(4) gold (including gold deposits and, if appropriate, gold swapped)		-
		volume in fine troy ounces	-
	(5) other reserve assets		939,132
		financial derivatives	484,080
		loans to non-bank non-residents	-
		other	455,052

Last time I checked a dash didn’t mean that the number was too big to report but was ‎rather a simple alternative for the number zero.  So according to the RBNZ website, ‎New Zealand has $0 worth of gold deposits from a grand total of zero fine troy ounces of gold.‎

Further confirmation of this comes from the World Gold Council.  They periodically ‎take information compiled by the IMF to create a ranking of gold deposits of ‎countries.‎

The lazy mans research site – Wikipedia means we don’t have to look too hard for the ‎latest figures though.  The table below ranks each nation according to it’s ‎officially reported gold holdings as of November 2009.‎

We can save you some time searching and state that unfortunately New Zealand does not feature – at all.‎

World official gold holding (November 2009)[11]

Rank	Country/Organization	Gold (tonnes)	Gold’s share of total forex reserves (%)[11]
1	United States	8,133.5	77.4%
2	Germany	3,408.3	69.2%
3	International Monetary Fund	3,005.3	-
4	Italy	2,451.8	66.6%
5	France	2,445.1	70.6%
6	China	1,054.0[12]	1.9%
7	Switzerland	1,040.1	29.1%
8	Japan	765.2	2.3%
9	Netherlands	612.5	59.6%
10	Russia	568.4	4.3%
11	India	557.7[6]	6%
12	European Central Bank	501.4	18.8%
13	Taiwan	423.6	3.9%
14	Spain	416.8	42.5%
15	Portugal	382.5	90.2%
16	Venezuela	363.9	35.5%
17	United Kingdom	310.3	18.7%
18	Lebanon	286.8	30.0%
19	Austria	280.0	50.5%
20	Belgium	227.5	42.5%
21	Algeria	173.6	3.6%
22	Philippines	153.9	12.3%
23	Libya	143.8	4.5%
24	Saudi Arabia	143.0	12.4%
25	Sweden	135.9	14.2%
26	Singapore	127.4	2.2%
27	Bank for International Settlements	125.0	-
28	South Africa	124.7	11.0%
29	Turkey	116.1	4.7%
30	Greece	112.5	92.8%
31	Romania	103.7	8.4%
32	Poland	102.9	5.0%
33	Thailand	87.4	2.2%
34	Australia	79.8	7.3%
35	Kuwait	79.0	11.9%
36	Egypt	75.6	6.4%
37	Indonesia	73.1	4.3%
38	Kazakhstan	72.0	11.6%
39	Denmark	66.5	4.7%
40	Pakistan	65.4	20.3%
41	Argentina	54.7	3.4%
42	Finland	49.1	17.6%
43	Bulgaria	39.9	7.6%
44	West African Economic and Monetary Union	36.5	11.8%
45	Malaysia	36.4	1.2%
46	Slovakia	35.1	81.6%
47	Peru	34.7	3.3%
48	Brazil	33.6	0.5%
49	Bolivia	28.3	10.3%
50	Ecuador	26.3	11.6%
51	Ukraine	26.2	2.0%
52	Syria	25.9	-
53	Morocco	22.0	2.2%
54	Nigeria	21.4	0.9%
55	Belarus	20.3	11.6%
56	Sri Lanka	15.3[7]	3.8%
57	Jordan	14.8	5.2%
58	South Korea	14.3	0.1%
59	Cyprus	13.9	29.7%
60	Czech Republic	13.2	0.9%
61	Netherlands Antilles	13.1	31.4%
62	Cambodia	12.4	12.9%
63	Qatar	12.4	2.6%
64	Serbia	12.2	2.3%
65	Laos	8.1	23.1%
66	Latvia	7.7	3.3%
67	El Salvador	7.3	8.2%
68	Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa	7.1	-
69	Guatemala	6.9	3.9%
70	Colombia	6.9	0.8%
71	Macedonia	6.8	7.6%
72	Tunisia	6.8	2.1%
73	Lithuania	5.8	2.3%
74	Ireland	5.5	16.3%
75	Mongolia	5.2	10.9%
76	Bahrain	4.7	-
77	Mauritius	3.9[8]	2.4%
78	Bangladesh	3.5	1.6%
79	Mexico	3.4	0.1%
80	Canada	3.4	0.2%
81	Slovenia	3.2	7.2%
82	Aruba	3.1	17.1%
83	Hungary	3.1	0.3%
84	Mozambique	3.0	4.6%
85	Kyrgyzstan	2.6	5.3%
86	Luxembourg	2.3	10.8%
87	Albania	2.2	2.6%
88	Hong Kong	2.1	0.0%
89	Iceland	2.0	1.9%
90	Tajikistan	2.0	-
91	Papua New Guinea	2.0	2.1%
92	Trinidad and Tobago	1.9	0.6%
93	Yemen	1.6	0.5%
94	Suriname	1.4	7.0%
95	Cameroon	0.9	-
96	Honduras	0.7	0.7%
97	Paraguay	0.7	0.6%
98	Dominican Republic	0.6	0.7%
99	Gabon	0.4	-
100	Republic of the Congo	0.3	-
101	Chad	0.3	-
102	Central African Republic	0.3	-
103	Uruguay	0.3	0.1%
104	Estonia	0.2	0.1%
105	Chile	0.2	0.0%
106	Malta	0.2	0.8%
107	Costa Rica	0.1	0.0%

It’s a bit of a worry when the Central African Republic of Chad, which the U.N. ‎reports as the 5th poorest nation on the planet, has more gold reserves than we do!‎

They may come in at number 101 on the list and only have 0.3 tonnes but that’s 0.3 ‎tonnes more than us!  (Or about $15 Million NZD in Gold reserves more than New Zealand)‎

Just like we believe the average person should have at least a small percentage of their ‎liquid net worth held in gold, we too think the RBNZ would be wise to convert some ‎of it’s foreign currency reserves into real money to ensure a store of value in a time ‎when currencies the world over are being depreciated at ever greater speed.‎