Kathmandu. Many of the world’s central banks have bought gold extensively in recent years. Due to this, the price of gold has increased significantly.
Turkey’s central bank has sold 58 tonnes of gold in the past two weeks. Turkey has raised more than $8 billion from gold sales. Turkey’s gold reserves now stand at 513 tons. This is the lowest in 7 years.
Turkey has used more than half of its gold to borrow U.S. dollars. The rest is sold in the open market.
Turkey sold 6 tonnes of gold in the week ended March 13. Sales rose to 52 tonnes in the week ending March 20. During this period, a total of 43 tonnes of gold ETFs were issued worldwide. This indicates that Turkey is the largest source of gold sales.
The central bank has had to pump in a significant amount of dollars to protect Turkey’s currency, the lira. Middle East tensions have led to a sharp rise in global crude oil prices. This has increased Turkey’s import bill. This has put pressure on the lira. This is the reason why Turkey’s central bank has had to pump dollars out of its foreign exchange reserves to stop the depreciation of the currency. –Agency
