By Abderrahmane Mebtoul, University Professor, international expert accountant from the Higher Institute of Management in Lille, France, Doctor of Economics
A country’s international reserves are generally the set of assets held by its central bank (currencies, gold, special drawing rights (SDRs), so gold reserves are included in the international definition of foreign exchange reserves by the IMF.
1. Gold being indefinitely reusable and practically indestructible, almost all the tons of gold extracted since the beginning of humanity still exist. In total, mines produce about 60% of the world’s supply, with the remaining 40% coming from recycling and sales of central bank stocks. Gold served as the exclusive monetary standard with the Bretton Woods agreements establishing the international monetary system in 1945 (Gold Exchange Standard) with the dollar as the international currency defined in a certain weight of gold and other currencies in dollars. In 1971, with President Nixon, the United States suspended the convertibility of the dollar to gold and in 1976 the Jamaica agreements demonetized gold, which since then has no official monetary role. According to the World Gold Council (WGC) report, global gold reserves of central banks are around 35,244.5 tons. Gold priced in ounces is traded on the precious metals market, mainly in New York, London, Zurich, and Hong Kong. The price of gold experiences significant fluctuations as a safe haven asset depending on the inflation rate, global economic uncertainties, and global tensions. The price of gold in 2000 reached a low of $280 per ounce. During the 2020s, the price of gold, marked by a spectacular rise due to the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic uncertainty, reached a historic milestone of over $2,000 per ounce in August 2020, achieving records of +28% in euros and +36% in dollars compared to the beginning of the year. The September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States generated new international tensions and subsequent crises each pushed the price of gold per ounce above $2,000, and in the last quarter of 2024, we witnessed a historic record that brought the price of the yellow metal to over $2,500 per ounce. Between the beginning and December 27, 2025, the price reached a record level between $4,300 – $4,500 per ounce (31.1g). For our calculations, we will take an average of $132,000 per kg using an approximate exchange rate of 1 USD to 0.92.
2. – Ranking of countries – gold reserves
USA 8133 tons, giving a value according to the average price at the end of December 2025 of $1,073 billion
Germany 3350 tons, a value of $442 billion
Italy 2452 tons, a value of $323 billion
France 2437 tons, a value of $321 billion
Russia 2330 tons, a value of $307 billion
China 2304 tons, a value of $304 billion
Switzerland 1040 tons, a value of $185 billion
India 880 tons, a value of $116 billion
Japan 841 tons, a value of $111 billion
Turkey 641 tons, a value of $85 billion
Netherlands 612 tons, a value of $81 billion
Poland 515 tons, a value of $68 billion
Taiwan 424 tons, a value of $56 billion
Portugal 383 tons, a value of $51 billion
Uzbekistan 361 tons, a value of $48 billion
Kazakhstan 324 tons, a value of $43 billion
Saudi Arabia 323 tons, a value of $42 billion
United Kingdom 310 tons, a value of $41 billion
Lebanon 287 tons, a value of $38 billion
Spain 282 tons, a value of $37 billion
Belgium 227 tons, a value of $30 billion
Singapore 205 tons, a value of $27 billion
Azerbaijan 185 tons, a value of $24 billion
Algeria 174 tons, a value of $23 billion, unchanged in volume since 2005
Iraq 165 tons, a value of $21 billion
Libya 147 tons, a value of $19.40 billion
Brazil 145 tons, a value of $19.14 billion
Egypt 129 tons, a value of $17 billion
South Africa 125 tons, a value of $16 billion
South Korea 104 tons, a value of $13 billion
Kuwait 79 tons, $10 billion
Iran 61 tons, $8 billion
Oman 6.73 tons, $890 million
Bahrain 4.5 tons, $595 million
For the 10 countries with the most gold reserves in Africa, we have in descending order
10-Kenya 0.02 tons, a negligible amount
Total for Africa: 1010 tons
3.-What conclusion to draw?
Historical experiences show that countries with significant foreign exchange reserves or a trade surplus do not necessarily experience high economic growth. The social currency, reflecting the state/citizen trust relationship, is a sign that allows exchanges without creating wealth. On the contrary, hoarding and speculation in safe-haven assets like gold, certain currencies, or certain commodities are harmful to any economy. As demonstrated earlier, there is no correlation between the richest countries and the level of foreign exchange reserves. It is important to avoid the monetary myth of focusing solely on trade balance equilibrium to preserve foreign exchange reserves, a static vision that should not rejoice in a positive trade balance with shortages affecting most sectors. It’s like a household experiencing food deficits due to restrictions, but with many diseases. The apparent diseases of the social body are inflation and unemployment.
There is no proportionality between gold reserves included in foreign exchange reserves according to the definition of the International Monetary Fund and the level of development. For example, Nordic countries like Sweden, Finland, and Norway, ranked highest in the 2025 Human Development Index, have very low gold reserves. Lebanon, on the brink of bankruptcy, has a significant amount of gold, while countries have invested in sovereign wealth funds, which are investment funds owned by a state that utilize a country’s excess economic reserves, usually from natural resource revenues or trade surpluses, to generate long-term profits, like the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, the largest in the world, which reached a record value of around €1,750 billion in 2025, with only 28 tons of gold. Sovereign funds from the Emirates (Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (1.1 Tr$ in 2024) and Qatar (557 billion dollars in assets) have respectively only 75 tons worth about 10 billion dollars and 116 tons worth 15.31 billion dollars. Another example is the marginal Europe of the 27, despite being the third largest economic area in terms of GDP after the USA and China, has only 36 tons, as do some African countries experiencing remarkable growth with little or no internal gold reserves. This shows that a nation’s wealth primarily comes from work linked to good governance. After depleting its gold stocks, with the discovery of Christopher Columbus, Spain declined for several centuries. The Romanian communist regime had foreign exchange reserves due to drastic import restrictions, but a ruined economy that led to its downfall. This is what awaits oil-producing countries or those relying solely on raw commodities for their livelihood.
