Russia’s gold and currency reserves hit a record high

[lovuian]

http://english.pravda.ru/russia/economics/07-05-2006/80011-gold-0

Russia's gold and currency reserves soar for the second week in a row. According to a statement issued by the Central Bank on Thursday, the reserves hit a new record high of $225.7 billion as at April 28, up by $8.6 billion on the previous week's figures. It is the highest one-week rise in the Central Bank’s gold and foreign exchange reserves since January 28, 2005, or for 15 months.




The new rise has enabled Russia to outdo South Korea with its $217.3 billion in terms of gold and currency reserves. Russia now ranks fourth for the reserves after Taiwan (third place with $275 billion). Most analysts indicate Russia could catch up with Taiwan and surpass it should the reserves continue growing at a current rate. Taiwan’s reserves also grow but not at such a high rate.

It is obvious that the dramatic rise in Russia’s gold and currency reserves is caused not only by an increasingly steady influx of petrodollars into Russia. Analysts believe the Central Bank’s intensive dollar acquisition policy is one of the reasons behind the latest surge. The Central Bank took steps to prevent the ruble from further strengthening against the dollar as Russians kept selling the weak greenback. Under the circumstances, the Central Bank could not but actively buy the U.S. currency.

Despite looking set to outstrip Taiwan with regard to gold and currency reserves, Russia is unlikely to climb another step and outpace China (first place with $876 billion) and Japan (second place with $852 billion) in the near future
more...

Ok
China is #1
Japan is #2
Tawain is #3
Russia is #4

So where is America??? This scares the hell out of me... Fort Knox have you been raided???

[EVDebs]

1. Instead of metal based currency, ours is based on US taxpayer's

ability to repay debts. When the devaluation of the dollar really kicks in, and the other countries start getting more and more worthless paper, and US taxpayers can't afford to buy those foreign products anymore... a vicious circle becomes a vortex.

US GDP is 3/4th world GDP ($12 trillion per yr US vs. $36 trillion yr world). It's a monopsony, much like Wal-Mart itself.

[gerrilea]

2. I did a search on our reserves...supposedly we're #1 here's the list

I did a search on google for this...don't know if it's true or not...

Official reported gold reserves
As 22 September 2005, the largest gold holdings in tonnes as reported by the World Gold Council can be seen on the table below <2>. The United States holding of gold is worth approximately $162.7 billion as of February 3rd 2006.

1 United States 8,133.5
2 Germany 3,427.8
3 IMF 3,217.3 International Monetary Fund
4 France 2,892.6
5 Italy 2,451.8
6 Switzerland 1,290.1
7 Japan 765.2
8 Netherlands 722.4
9 ECB 719.9 European Central Bank
10 China, Mainland 600.0
11 Spain 493.3
12 Taiwan 423.3
13 Portugal 407.5
14 Russia 386.6
15 India 357.7
16 Venezuela 357.4
17 United Kingdom 311.3
18 Austria 307.5
19 Lebanon 286.8
20 Belgium 227.7
21 Philippines 187.9
22 BIS 185.3 Bank for International Settlements
23 Algeria 173.6
24 Sweden 155.4
25 Libya 143.8
26 Saudi Arabia 143.0
27 Singapore 127.4
28 South Africa 123.9
29 Turkey 116.1
30 Greece 107.9
31 Romania 104.9
32 Poland 102.9
33 Indonesia 96.5
34 Thailand 84.0
35 Australia 79.7
36 Kuwait 79.0
37 Egypt 75.6
38 Denmark 66.5
39 Pakistan 65.3
40 Kazakhstan 58.6

[lovuian]

3. I like your list maybe Russia is just bragging

their news media does that sometimes well ok all the time :rofl:

[Jack_DeLeon]

4. Maybe our government took the gold to a pawnshop....

Plenty of Americans are pawning thier valuables for gas money, our government is probably doing the same.

[starroute]

5. Here's a more complete list

This was as of July 1, 2005:

http://www.bvom.com/news/english/news/index.asp?.sequence=32176&.this=60

The Bank of Japan is the world’s leader in terms of international reserves amounting to 842.47 billion U.S. dollars. The People’s Bank of China accumulated 659.14 billion U.S. dollars in its international reserves, which brought the People’s Republic of China to the second position.

The Central Bank of the Republic of China (Taiwan) is the third with reserves totaling 253.17 billion U.S. dollars, and the fourth world’s bank in terms of its international reserves is the Bank of Korea (South Korea) with 206.1 billion U.S. dollars.

Russia’s Central Bank became the fifth as of the latest reporting date, June 24, 2005. Russia’s gold and foreign exchange reserves grew to 149.6 billion U.S. dollars by June 24, Prime-Tass said.

Russia is followed by the Reserve Bank of India (with reserves amounting to 139.57 billion U.S. dollars), the Monetary Authority of Hong Kong (122.4 billion U.S. dollars), the Monetary Authority of Singapore (116 billion U.S. dollars), the U.S. Federal Reserve System (79.53 billion U.S. dollars) and Germany’s Bundesbank (76.43 billion U.S. dollars).

So after Russia at #4 come India, Hong Kong, Singapore, the US, and Germany.

I guess that business about the fabled riches of the Orient still holds as true as it did in the Middle Ages . . . at least in terms of gold.