Where are the country’s gold reserves stored?
This question is answered by the “Kathimerini” newspaper in one of its articles, according to which, the reserves are stored in safe depots in Greece and abroad.
More particularly, approximately 50% of the reserves are stored in a treasury of the Bank of Greece and the rest 50%, at the Bank of England, at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the U.S.A. and in Switzerland.
In more detail they are divided as follows: 29% in the U.S.A., 20% in the United Kingdom, 4% in Switzerland and 47% in Greece, securing thus the coverage of national needs in possible exceptional circumstances while the storage of part of the country’s gold abroad consists an international practice for almost all of the Central Banks. Therefore, this is not an original practice.
“According to the most recent data of the Bank of Greece, the current needs in gold of Greece are about 149.1 tons and their value amounts to 5,261.8 million Euros. As is ascertained by executives of the supervisory authority, in the last years there has been no change in the quantity of gold, with the exception of a small fluctuation due to transactions with the public regarding the trade of gold sovereigns”, as is mentioned in the article.
Another interesting detail, as is pointed out, is the fact that, according to the balance sheet items of the Bank of Greece, “the amount of gold that has been transferred to the European Central Bank, after the country’s accession to the Eurozone and the participation of the Bank of Greece to the Eurosystem, is very small compared to the total gold reserves”.
A similar transfer has been performed by every country that participates to the Eurozone. The decision of the Bank of Greece in 2003 to sell 20 tons of gold of its reserves was part of the more efficient management of its portfolio, a policy that was pursued by most of the European Central Banks. This liquidation just led to a differentiation of the portfolio of the Bank of Greece and regarded part of the quantity of gold that has been collected by the currency markets”.
It is also interesting that, since 2000, the Bank of Greece has converted its reserves into gold bars that follow international standards, in order to make their management easier.
Of course, as it is remarked in “Kathimerini”, “the stories about our country’s gold reserves are many. The most famous, however, is the one that has to do with February 1941, when the management of the Bank of Greece has managed, in a reckless action, to load the valuable reserves it had on vessels of the Hellenic Navy, in order to transport them secretly to its branch of Heraklion, Crete. A few days before the entry of the German troops into Athens, in April 1941, the governor of the Bank of Greece Kyriakos Varvaresos and deputy governor Georgios Mantzavinos abandoned, along with the political leadership, the capital of Greece, going to Crete. Subsequently, the management and the gold were transferred to Cairo and short afterwards the transfer of the gold reserves to Pretoria was deemed appropriate. Thus, the mortgage for the future reconstitution of the drachma was registered. Finally, after a “stopover” in London, the gold reserves returned to Greece after the war”.
Published: HuffPost Greece 05/03/2017 Source: Kathimerini
