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Bank of Zambia buys US$72 million worth of gold bullion

• BoZ is doing two kinds of gold purchases now, the first is gold bullion which is refined to the highest standard.
• US$72 million has been purchased since the Bank began the program.
• The Bank has purchased about 6 million dollars of Dore gold.

Bank of Zambia (BoZ) has disclosed that it currently has US$72 million worth of gold bullion in its reserves.
Responding to Money FM Bank Deputy Governor-Operations Dr. Francis Chipimo told Money FM News that the Central is on track towards meeting the targeted gold purchases of US$100 million by the end of 2022.
Dr. Chipimo explained that the Bank is currently undertaking two kinds of gold purchases with the first being gold bullion which is refined to the highest standard.
He said the Central Bank has also purchased about US$ 6 million of Dore gold which is not yet refined to the highest standard.
“We are doing two kinds of gold purchases now, the first is gold bullion which is actually refined to the highest standard so that it can go directly into our reserves and this is some of the major mining companies, and so US$72 million has been purchased since we began the program.
“We have also been purchasing what we call Dore gold which is not yet refined to the highest standard, and we have purchased about 6 million dollars of that and the bullion gold has been around 39 or more less like 40, 000 ounces which is about a thousand and 200 Kgs,” Dr. Chipimo said.
Meanwhile, Dr. Chipimo said in terms of the retail participation in gold purchases, the process of refining the commodity is involving because for gold to be classified as a reserve, it has to be of a particular standard, and has to be refined by recognized refiners and the Bank is currently having it refined in South Africa.
“In terms of the retail participation, it’s important to understand why we purchase gold, so we purchase gold in order to build up reserves. For gold to be classified as a reserve it has to be of a particular standard and that’s the bullion standard which we have, it has to be refined by recognized refiners.”
He explained that the Central Bank has also been purchasing Dore gold from Zambia Gold Company prior to them seizing to operate, and was in the process of trying to make sure that the commodity is refined so that it can go into the reserves.
“Currently, we have that refinery taking place in South Africa so we can really purchase gold of that standard and typically we are purchasing it from producers. So the bigger picture with ZCCM-IH and Zambia Gold was that indeed we want to be in a position where we can purchase gold locally, have it refined, we provide enough purchase incomes to the people we are purchasing it from, and obviously to the communities in the sense that there are people who they work with and that goes into our reserves.”
“But the process of refining is also quite involved because all the key refiners in the world will want to make sure that that gold is mined in a responsible way, you are not using children so there’s quite a process for us to make sure that we can purchase gold in the right way for it to be able to come to our reserves. So that is really the constraints when you talk about who can actually participate in the gold purchase, we are obviously looking to partner with producers,” he stated.
Zambia is now one of at least 10 countries that have been net buyers of gold since 2020, among them Russia and China who collectively added 483 tonnes of bullion to their reserves.
The gold purchases are being done through the state-owned ZCCM-IH and Zambia Gold Company as part of efforts to boost international reserves.

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