Poland is repatriating gold from overseas, after it more than doubled its bullion holdings in the past year. Central banks all over the world have been stocking up on gold in recent years, shifting away from the US dollar.
The National Bank of Poland (NBP) has bought 100 tons of the precious metal since the beginning of this year, nearly four times more than it added to its reserves in 2018.
Now Warsaw wants to bring a significant part the precious metal back home, repatriating it from the Bank of England. The NBP wants to transfer at least 100 tons and store the repatriated bullion in its vaults. The Polish central bank noted that the repatriation comes on account of central banks’ need to diversify the storage of their gold reserves “to limit geopolitical risk,” which, it says, could result “in losing access to or restriction of the availability of gold resources held abroad.”
In recent months, the Bank of England refused to return 14 tons of gold belonging to Venezuela. Caracas wanted to repatriate some of its bullion holdings to deal with the country’s economic crisis, which is exacerbated by US sanctions.
The Bank of England has also kept a reported 80 tons of Australian gold for years and the UK regulator has not allowed Canberra to carry out a proper audit of its bullion holdings.
For the rest of this article: https://www.rt.com/business/463723-poland-repatriates-gold-uk/