Be prepared for the next great transfer of wealth. Buy physical silver and storable food.
goldcore.com / By Mark O’Byrne / May 28, 2013
During the 1990’s, Belgium sold some 1,000 tons of gold into the market – more than three quarters of its remaining holdings. The Belgian gold reserves, which had already seen sizeable liquidation in late 1978, fell from 33.7 million ounces on 12/31/88, to just 5.7 million ounces on 03/31/98, or a fall of 83% in less than 10 years (see chart).
Since the start of 1996, when gold prices trended downward, some of the sharpest falls in prices coincided with central bank announcements of sales.
All except the UK announced their gold sales only after completion of their gold sales programmes.
This is in marked contrast to the Bank of England’s very public gold auctions and Gordon Brown announcing the sale of the UK gold reserves prior to the auctions thereby depressing the gold price and pushing it to multi year lows.
The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) allege that the gold sales were not simply about foreign exchange diversification, rather they were designed to manipulate gold prices lower and reduce public confidence in gold as a store of value so that there would be increased trust in the dollar, the coming euro and other fiat currencies.
The National Bank of Belgium sold gold on five occasions since 1989. Belgium announced on March 22, 1989, that it had sold 127 tons of gold. On June 17, 1992, it announced it had sold 202 tons of gold.
On April 24, 1995, it said it had sold 175 tons in order to increase its foreign exchange holdings.
Belgium announced another sale of 203 tons of gold on March 27, 1996, stating that the sale had reduced the share of gold in total reserves to a level which would facilitate the participation of the National Bank of Belgium in the process of European unification and which, corresponded to the proportion of gold in the total reserves of the Member States of the European Union.
Further sales of 299 tons of gold were announced on March 18, 1998 just prior to the introduction of the euro and the monetary union. The bank said at the time that the capital gain from the gold sales was used to repay government debt in foreign currencies.
Thanks to BrotherJohnF