Submitted by Ronan manly, Bullionstar.com
In early April this year, the Hungarian central bank stunned gold markets with the surprise announcement that it had purchased a massive 63 tonnes of gold during March, and in doing so tripled its gold reserves from 31.5 tonnes to 94.5 tonnes.
At the time, this 63.5 tonnes purchase (the details of which we covered here) was the largest year-to-date gold purchase by a central bank during 2021.
Thailand now in Pole Position for 2021
Fast forward to June and that record has now been broken, as Thailand’s central bank has now made public that over the two months of April and May inclusive, it purchased a total of 90 tonnes of gold, thereby putting the Bank of Thailand in the pole position of the global central bank gold purchases during the first half of 2021.
In fact, with China and Russia now ‘officially’ out of the market for buying gold since 2019 and early 2020, respectively, this Bank of Thailand gold buying is the largest short-term gold accumulation operation by any central bank sovereign since the Polish central bank bought 100 tonnes of gold in London during the first half of 2019 and promptly airlifted it back to Warsaw.
Thailand’s 90 tonnes addition in its gold reserves over April and May comprised a 43.5 tonnes increase in during April, and another 46.5 tonnes increase during May, taking its total gold reserves from 154 tonnes to 244 tonnes, a 58.4% increase.
While the Polish and Hungarian gold purchases were announced in official press releases and attracted plenty of media attention, the same cannot be said of Thailand’s 90 tonnes purchase. In fact, apart from the publication of updates to its international reserve data position (both on its website and in an IMF database), there has been no comment from the Thai central bank that they have made this massive gold purchase
In the ancient Pali language, the Southeast Asian peninsula including present day Thailand was referred to as Suvarnabhumi, which means “Land of Gold” or “Golden Land”.
As Asia’s third largest gold market after China and India, physical gold is central to Thai culture and society. All across the country, gold is held as a form of savings and investment, and thousands of gold selling outlets exist across the country selling everything from gold jewelry as well as gold coins and gold bars. Gold is also gifted during Thai weddings and is central to religious ceremonies in Thailand. Even Thailand’s currency, the Baht, owes its name to an historic precious metals weight measurement, also called ‘Baht’.
Investment gold kilobars: Popular in the Thai gold market