The Swiss National Bank has been selling gold for years, but the country's per-capita gold holdings are enormous. Where does the country stand internationally?
A new study shows that Switzerland is the third largest gold nation in the world after the global gold market recovered significantly following two years of Corona-related decline.
(Source: Forex Suggest. Click the image to enlarge)
Luxembourg-based gold trading platform Forex Suggest analyzed global data on central bank gold reserves, consumer demand for jewelry, exchange-traded fund holdings, and per capita demand. Switzerland ranks third behind the US and Germany.
The World's Largest Gold Nations
(Source: Forex Suggest. Click the image to enlarge)
With a per-capita GDP of well over $80,000, it stands to reason that demand for the precious metal is very high in this country. In the first quarter of this year, Switzerland had one of the highest ETF gold holdings at 341 tons and the highest per capita consumption of 5.58 grams compared to all other countries (see table above).
Largest Gold Importer
After sustained sales over the past two decades, the Swiss National Bank (SNB) still holds gold reserves of 1,040 tons, according to the study.
According to the news service «swissinfo.ch», Switzerland was the world's largest gold importer in September 2022 and bought gold worth 90 billion francs in 2021.
Largest Gold Refiner and Transit Point
Although Switzerland has lower total gold reserves at $60.646 billion than the US and Germany, it still represents the world's largest gold refining and transit hub.
In February, «Reuters» reported that Switzerland shipped 58.3 tons of gold worth $3.6 billion to Turkey in January, by far the highest for any month in records going back to 2012.
Declining Gold ETFs
The US Federal Reserve has the world's largest gold reserves at 8,133 tons, followed by Germany at 3,355 tons. However, Germany has higher per capita consumer demand than the US and the third highest volume of gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) at 401 tons, behind the US and the UK.
Still, demand for gold ETFs in Switzerland and Germany declined markedly, attributable to last year's interest rate turnaround and bullish equity markets in the first half of this year.
