WHY IS RBI BRINGING GOLD RESERVES BACK TO THE COUNTRY

Mint Road watchers point to the need to safeguard holdings amid growing geopolitical uncertainties

- BENN KOCHUVEEDAN

The Reserve Bank has been on a localization spree in recent years when it comes to storing 854.7 tonnes of its gold assets/reserves. Of the total, 510.5 tonnes are now stored in the different vaults of the central bank, mostly in the Mumbai vaults.

It has also been on a gold-buying spree since between April 2022 and September 2024; it has added close to 100 tonnes to the reserves.

In just two years ending September 2024, the RBI has quietly brought back 214 tonnes of gold. In FY23, the monetary authority had brought in only 5.3 tonnes back to the country, taking the domestic storage to 301.1 tonnes. In FY24, the number went up by 106.8 tonnes, taking the local storage to 408.3 tonnes. In the first six months of the current financial year, the central bank brought back 102.2 tonnes, taking the total to 510.5 tonnes.

Of the rest of the reserves, 314 tonnes are with the safe vaults of the Bank of England, 10 tonnes are with the Bank for International Settlement in Basel, Switzerland, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and the remaining 20.3 tonnes are in gold deposits, according to the latest data released by the central bank late October.

Putting the 1991 clock back