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Sunday, January 31, 2016

How Much China Is Really Buying “On the Sly”

David Marsh, a columnist at MarketWatch, thinks “China probably has a lot more gold than it admits.”

I concur. What’s more, as the gold China buys from domestic miners is paid for in yuan, these purchases are easier to leave out of official reserve numbers, thereby accumulating quietly.

By some estimates, China’s actual gold hoard tops an astounding 10,000 metric tons.

One expert, Simon Hunt of Simon Hunt Strategic Services, has suggested a figure as high as 30,000 metric tons:

“China has much more gold than it is allowing the world to see. As Alasdair Macleod, probably the world’s number one analyst of the gold market, wrote that between 1983 and 2002 China probably accumulated 25,000 tons of gold. Thus, its current gold holdings are probably north of 30,000 tons in contrast to the USA which has either sold or leased most of its gold.”

Clearly, that’s a huge number, and if ever China were to confirm something even close to that level, it would certainly shock gold to a massively higher price.

Whether or not China has already accumulated such huge reserves, all the signs point towards a nation that’s aggressively growing its gold stash.

And to do so covertly makes perfect sense: Their buying puts less upward pressure on the price, allowing the Chinese to accumulate even more on the cheap.

Remember, China is only slightly behind India as the world’s largest gold consumer, but it’s indisputably the world’s largest gold producer.

Its mining output is double what it was just a decade ago, and that production stays in-country to help satisfy domestic demand.

Like India, China has a deep, ancient cultural affinity for gold, and it knows only too well that “other” Golden Rule: Who has the gold makes the rules.

With that in mind, the idea that China actually holds a lot more gold than it’s reporting makes much more sense.

At the same time, China is increasingly asserting its position on the world stage – its move to make the yuan a global reserve currency is only the latest step.

So for China to be laying in this kind of massive supply can only mean somethingbig is in the works…