Iraq maintains its 30th position in the world with the largest gold reserves, 6 SEPT

  Iraq maintains its 30th position in the world with the largest gold reserves

Shafaq News / The World Gold Council revealed on Wednesday that Iraq maintained its 30th rank in the world with the largest reserves of the yellow metal.

The latest schedule of the Council for the month of September 2023, seen by Shafaq News Agency, showed that Iraq maintained its ranking 30th globally out of 100 countries listed in the table with the largest gold reserves, despite buying 2.3 tons of gold in May, bringing its possession of gold to 132.6 tons, representing 7.6% of the rest of its other reserves.

He added that Iraq ranked fourth in the Arab world with the largest gold reserves after Saudi Arabia 323.1 tons, Lebanon 286.8 tons, Algeria 173.6 tons, and Egypt came in fifth place 125.9 tons.He pointed out that the most central banks buying gold during the second quarter of 2023 were Poland, where they bought 48.41 tons, followed by China by 45.10 tons, followed by the Czech Republic by 6.06 tons and then Russia by 3.11 tons, while the most central banks of the countries selling gold during this period were for Turkey with 132.23 tons, followed by Tunisia with 18.50 tons and then Uzbekistan with 4.04 tons.

Globally, according to the table, the United States of America still leads the rest of the countries with the largest possession of gold in the world by 8.133 thousand tons, followed by Germany with 3.352 thousand tons, then Italy came with 2.451 thousand tons, while Suriname ranked 100th and 1.5 tons, followed by Bosnia and Herzegovina with the same amount by 1.5 tons.

Financial expert Mohammed al-Hasani said that "all countries, including Iraq, are trying to diversify their basket of currencies and gold to be an investment portfolio to reduce risks and sudden fluctuations that may occur as a result of crises or currency devaluation, as it is a kind of hedging and gives monetary stability to the state."

He added that "countries do not rely on gold significantly in their investment portfolio, because it is a heavy commodity not like the rest of the currencies that are sold and bought quickly, so we see that some rich countries have gold, but they are almost reserves of gold fixed do not sell and buy continuously such as America, Germany and the United Kingdom."