A few days ago I was reading in the digital version of a Canadian publication a piece of information that caught my attention. In it, it was stated that German households owned more than 9,000 at the end of 2020 (just over 100 grams per capita and about 100 tons more than in 2019) and cited as a source a study by the Steinbeis University of Berlin carried out on behalf of Reisebank. . The data was certainly surprising to me, given that it almost triples the gold held by the central bank of this country (3,362 tons at the end of 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund), and this led me to wonder if it is a general trend in Europe and What is the situation in Spain?
Diving through the Net, I found an article from August 2020 by analyst Jan Nieuwenhuijs that made an estimate of the per capita gold held by the citizens of six countries around the world in 2019: India, China, Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland. . In the German case, it fully coincided with the figures from the Steinbeis University, so, by pure logic, I deduce that the calculation of the rest of the countries is also correct. The expert’s list is headed by India and China, which with 24,500 and 20,398 tons, respectively, are far behind the rest of the countries in terms of gold in the hands of individuals. Third place is occupied by Germany with 8,918 tons of gold in private hands that year, followed by Italy (5,707), France (4,605) and Switzerland (920). This analyst affirms, citing a study by the University of St. Gallen, that, precisely, Swiss individuals, with 231 grams, are the ones who lead the possession of gold per capita in the world. The 920 tons that the Swiss have as a whole is barely 60 less than the reserves of their central bank (1,040 tons), which, by the way, have decreased by almost 60% in the last 20 years, according to data from the International Monetary Fund.
It is curious to verify that, always according to the information of the International Monetary Fund, from India they were, at the end of 2020, of 677 tons, 36 times less than those possessed by its private citizens, and those of China, 1,948, some 10 times less than those of Chinese households. Those of Italy were on the same date of 2,452 tons, less than half that of its citizens, and those of France, 2,436, just over 50% of those that the French have in their possession.
And after reviewing the data from these countries, the logical question that arises is how much gold do Spanish private citizens have? As far as I know, there are no official data from any organization in this regard, as is the case with the countries mentioned above. What is official, according to the institutional report of the Bank of Spain itself and the International Monetary Fund, is that at the end of 2020 this institution had close to 282 tons of gold reserves, around 40% less than in the year 2000, when it had 524. The only ‘official’ data that we have are the statistics of the World Gold Council. It must be said that its graphs do not contemplate that physical investment gold (ingots and coins) is bought in Spain, and only Our country appears in the jewelry demand section, of which the sum of the last ten years would reach the figure of 93.9 tons. I do not know if the World Gold Council includes the and currencies of our country in this section or is not aware of it. I would dare to say, from my experience in the market, that in the last five years the traders of this precious metal that operate in Spanish territory have been able to sell between 23 and 30 tons of investment to individuals, but I would not know how much these possessed. before.
I understand that this is not an easy investigation to carry out in a country like ours, where, in general, we do not like to flaunt our possessions, but I would like to throw down a gauntlet. Do any of our prestigious academic institutions dare to investigate this, as the Steinbeis University of Berlin and the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland have done? If in other countries it has been possible to find out, why not here?
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