Serbia sits on tons of gold, the levers are kept in a special place and look at how much is in the money.

Serbia Map Map of Serbia, Photo: Shutterstock

Serbia today has about 32 tons of gold. In euros, that’s 1.66 billion. On levers – 2500 pieces.

If you lined them up in a continuous sequence, this “golden train” would be about 450 meters long, that is, it could make a true “golden wire” that would extend through more than half of the main “strip” of Belgrade, Knez Mihailova Street. That is the length of about four football fields, we can say the length of four “Marakana” of Belgrade (that is, four times from goal to goal), the newspaper writes.

The NBS holds about 96 percent of gold reserves in the form of levers, and a lever weighs 12.5 kilograms. At the end of November last year, Serbia had 21 tons of gold, but then the National Bank of Serbia bought another nine tons. The fact that the NBS should work to increase gold reserves could be heard many times from the top of the government, which is why Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić publicly said that more gold bullion means greater security for the country, and the leaders of many countries sent almost the same messages. region.

Therefore, Poland returned 100 tons to their country, and Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Turkey are working very seriously to increase “internal gold reserves”. By the way, gold in some great powers represents up to 70 percent of their total foreign exchange reserves.

At the end of September, the gross foreign exchange reserves of the National Bank of Serbia amounted to € 13 billion. Of that, about 12.7 percent of the foreign exchange reserves were gold reserves: 32.12 tons of gold with a total value of 1.66 billion euros or about 1.95 billion dollars.

Gold is stored almost entirely (about 96 percent) in the form of gold bars, while only about 4 percent is stored in the form of forged gold. Of the total amount of gold, about two-thirds are in the NBS vault, while about a third is in NBS accounts abroad, with the most eminent and secure institutions. This achieved the diversification of the place where the gold reserves are kept, which also reinforces its security, according to the NBS.

Jorgovanka Tabaković, Photo: Tanjug / Sava Radovanović

Calculation: here is how many levers fit in one ton

If, while watching movies, you ever found it strange that such a “small” lever could seriously annoy someone wearing it, things will become clear to you when you hear how heavy it is.

In other words, the average weight of a gold bar is 12.5 kilograms, so one ton of gold is equivalent to about 80 bars. As for the dimensions of the gold bars kept in the vault of the National Bank of Serbia, they are 17.78 X 9.21 X 4.45 cm. The fineness of the gold from which they are melted is 999/1000, that is, its content represents 99.9 percent of pure gold.

This precious metal serves as a guarantee of confidence in the central bank, especially in difficult times. Furthermore, this form of assets is more difficult to influence through the interest rate policies of different monetary authorities, while it generally serves as a form of long-term inflation protection.

Additionally, gold’s low correlation with traditional forms of assets in which foreign exchange reserves are held, such as the US dollar, makes gold useful for further portfolio diversification.