MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank has added as much as 204 tonne of gold in the past years ending March 2024—from 618.2 tonne in March 2019 to 822.1 tonne as of March 2024, in spite of the fact that the bullion price has skyrocketed during this period to the tune of 70 per cent.
The biggest addition has been in March-April of 2024 when it added a little over 24 tonne, which is as much as 150 per cent more than what it had purchased in the whole of FY2023, the monetary authority has added 16 tonne to the reserves, according to sources.
According to the RBI annual report released yesterday, the central bank added 27.5 tonnes in fiscal 2024.
The vastly changing tonnage clearly indicate that the monetary authority has been consistently increasing the gold reserves– from 618.2 tonne in 2019 rose to 661.4 tonne in 2020, and adding almost 35 tonne more in the pandemic ravaged 2021 taking the total to 695.3 tonne, further increasing it to 760.4 tonne in 2022, taking it to 794.6 tonne in 2023 and further increasing it 822.1 tonne by the first four months of 2024—net adding 203.9 tonne, even though gold price has been the highest on record crossing $2430 an ounce in April 2024.
It is not known the average price of these additions, though. Anyway, the World Gold Council has been repeatedly saying bullion prices are skyrocketting primarily because of the huge demand from central banks led by those of China and RBI and not consumer demand, this had last week the metal crossing the $2450/ounce mark. Almost a third of the gold demand in 2024 has been snapped by the central bank, according to the global bullion lobby.