Nov 5 (Reuters) - Gold crested $1,097.25 an ounce on Wednesday, a day after India's purchase of 200 tonnes of bullion sparked speculation of further central bank buying despite the metal's record-breaking run towards $1,100. [ID:nSP375900]
Asia's main central banks now hold bullion worth around $101.2 billion tonnes of gold. The world's biggest holder of gold, the U.S. Federal Reserve sits on 8,113.5 tonnes of gold worth $284.4 billion.
For a timeline on gold's meteoric rise see [ID:nSP532257]
For a graphic on the world's top gold reserve holders: http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/119/GLD_TP121109.gif Here is an overview of Asian countries' holdings of and positions on the metal.
Reserve value based on current price of $1,090.85 an ounce or $35.057 million per tonne
CHINA
HOLDINGS: 1,054 tonnes
VALUE: $36.95 billion
LAST MAJOR PURCHASE: Announced in April it had bought 454 tonnes of domestically produced gold over the past six years.
STATUS: The world's top gold producer, and Asia's top gold holder, China has the world's sixth largest reserves. Researchers with the ruling Communist Party have recommended buying more gold to boost holdings.
Ongoing national debate about the need to reduce exposure to the dollar and U.S. assets, in case America's ultra-loose fiscal and monetary policy rekindles inflation and erodes the value of the dollar and U.S. Treasuries, may see it chase more gold.
JAPAN
HOLDINGS: 765.2 tonnes
VALUE: $26.8 billion
LAST MAJOR PURCHASE: Japan's holding of gold has been kept at 24.60 million troy ounce since mid-2001.
STATUS:The government, which manages the reserves rather than the central bank, has said it will manage them by paying maximum attention to the safety and liquidity of the reserves.
INDIA
HOLDINGS: 557.7 tonnes
VALUE: $19.6 billion
LAST MAJOR PURCHASE: Purchase of 200 tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund on Nov. 3 propelled it into the global top ten for the first time. [ID:nSP375900]
STATUS: India is the world's biggest consumer of gold, primarily in the form of jewellery and investment among its billion-plus people. However its central bank had given few indications of being a front-runner in the move to diversify into bullion, and the proportion of gold as part of its total foreign reserves fell over recent decades.
TAIWAN
HOLDINGS: 423.6 tonnes
VALUE: $14.9 billion
In October 2006, the central bank said the island had $10.1 billion of gold in its reserves.
LAST MAJOR PURCHASE:
STATUS: Taiwan's central bank is studying whether to increase the amount of gold in its forex reserves. Taiwan's foreign exchange reserves, which rank behind China and Japan in Asia, rose to a record high of $332.2 billion at the end of September, mainly due to the euro and yen appreciating against the U.S. dollar. The figure that the central bank announced does not include gold.
AUSTRALIA
HOLDINGS: 79.9 tonnes
VALUE: $2.8 billion
STATUS: Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) policy is not to comment on its reserve management, but historic, economic and political factors mean it is not likely to be a big gold buyer.
The bank sold much of its gold reserves in 1997, noting then that there was little need for it to hold the metal given there was so much of it in the ground in Australia.
It also does not have major reserves to diversify. Of over A$43 bln in reserves, just A$2.9 bln is in gold.
Politically, the idea of the RBA, the central bank of one of the world's largest gold producers, buying foreign gold from the IMF, would not go down well with one of the country's economic backbones -- the mining industry.
SRI LANKA
HOLDINGS: 5.3 tonnes
VALUE: $185.8 million
LAST MAJOR PURCHASE: On Nov. 5 the Sri Lankan central bank governor said it has been buying gold for the past five or six months. [ID:nHKG262718]
STATUS: The Central Bank Governor said the country hasn't stopped buying gold yet, as it is a natural means of diversifying.
Source: Reuters, World Gold Council
