Talk:International Monetary Fund gold reserve

Does anybody know who and how this fund was started? What really was the reasoning behind starting it, considering that this funds have been dormant for a very very long time? I have googled around a bit, and most articles out there say very little about the funds operation. For example, who contributed into it? Where is the gold held? Any help would be appreaciated.

The gold was contributed by its member countries. If anybody know each members country contribution, help. For example, how much of the gold was contributed by France?

The purpose of the fund was to act as collateral for loans borrowed from IMF, that is my impression. This explains why the fund is currently very dormant. The reserve was contributed by rich countries which no longer borrow from IMF

Hmm, it seems like IMF sold some gold in the past "Between 1976 and 1980 about one-third of the Fund's gold holdings were sold at public auction to benefit the member developing countries. More than $4,600,000,000 was received from the gold sale" From above statement, its reasonable to infer that the funds current reserve is three times 4.6 trillion in 70s dollars value

The International Monetary Fund owned 103 million ounces of gold at the end of 2003, the world's third-largest owner after the U.S. and Germany, GFMS estimates.

General gold data

• World total cumulative gold stock is approximated at around 1,37,000 tonnes
• central banks and institutions around the world hold 32,620 tonnes of gold.
• Bundesbank has 3,400 tonnes of gold in their reserves.
• Swiss Central Bank has around 900 tonnes of gold in their reserves.

Sales of the fund is cosmetic

I just read an article where Adam Lerrick argues that revaluation of the fund is purely cosmetic (Cooking books) as the money raised from revaluation will come from somewhere else

Euromoney, May 2000 p 14