Safe-haven assets, including primarily the yellow metal, remain popular among the central banks of both developed countries and emerging markets. Central banks continue to expand their gold reserves, analysts say.

In the last month of summer, the world's central banks added 57.3 tons of the precious metal to their reserves, reaching an impressive 34.38 thousand tons. According to experts from the World Gold Council (WGC), emerging countries were particularly active in replenishment. The Central Bank of Turkey boosted its holdings by 41.8 tons to 362.5 tons, becoming a leader in this regard. The Bank of Russia took the second position, having increased its gold reserves by 11.3 tons to 2,230.4 tons. The third and fourth lines on this list were occupied by the Central Bank of China and the Central Bank of Qatar with an expansion of 5.9 tons and 3.1 tons, respectively.

According to analysts, central banks reserve managers are attracted to the precious metal market conditions. In August 2019, gold prices surged by almost 10% month-on-month and settled up above $1,500 a troy ounce. Such an upward trend has been observed for the first time since 2013, experts point out. Since the beginning of this year, gold prices have increased by more than 20%. A similar increase was noted three years ago, at the beginning of 2016.

The fact that the yellow metal is not so vulnerable to geopolitical risks associated with pressure from the United States is the decisive factor for the central banks of emerging markets to boost their gold reserves. As for Russia, the increase of gold holdings stems from the country's commitment to diversify its reverse assets away from the US dollar. The Bank of Russia seeks to enhance investment in precious metals while reducing investment in US Treasury securities. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation reported that at the end of the first quarter of 2019, the US dollar share in total reserves had not exceeded 23.6% compared to 43.7% in 2018. Since April last year, the volume of investments in US bonds has decreased by 11 times, the Central Bank of the Russian Federation stresses.