The Central bank of Ireland is adding gold to its reserves after a 12-year hiatus, and the reason for this may be concerns about inflation.
According to Bloomberg, the Central Bank of Ireland has purchased two tons of gold over the past few months. This was the first increase since 2009.
Why would they buy gold now, especially considering that the central bank's gold reserves have not changed for a decade? Media reports said that one of the possibilities is the risk of inflation.
At the end of last month, Gabriel Makhlouf, Governor of the central bank of Ireland, said that he was very concerned about inflation.
Europe, as well as the United States, is facing rising inflation. EU's consumer prices rose to 4.9% year on year, exceeding all market expectations. In October, inflation in Ireland reached 5.1%, which is the highest level since 2007.
Globally, central banks' interest in gold is growing this year. A little earlier, the news came out that the central bank of Singapore increased its gold reserves by 20% this year for the first time in two decades.
According to the report on international reserves and foreign currency liquidity of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), gold was purchased in the period from May to June for a total amount of 26.35 metric tons. This increased Singapore's total gold reserves to 153.76 tons.
According to World Gold data, world gold reserves increased by 333.2 tons for the first half of the year as a whole.