By Dan Popescu
Goldbroker.com
We say a picture is worth a thousand words. President Putin holding a gold bar in front of the media is no accident nor a coincidence. By this image, he intends to show the world the importance Russia grants gold. Russia was, in 2013, for the second successive year, the largest announced gold buyer. This was partially achieved by regular acquisitions of its local mine supply. Russia and Kazakhstan bought more than half of the gross increase in gold reserves in 2013, according to CPM Group.
At the 2009 G8 gathering in Aquila, Italy, then-Russian President and now Vice President Dimitry Medvedev showed reporters an example of a gold coin of a supranational currency, which he called a “united future world currency”. The Royal Mint of Belgium created the coin and a special gold edition was presented as a gift to the G8 world leaders. Only President Medvedev was more than happy to appear in front of the media holding one.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said in 2011, “They [US] are living beyond their means and shifting a part of the weight of their problems to the world economy… They [US] are living like parasites off the global economy with their monopoly of the dollar.” He also recently told foreign journalists at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum 2014, “For us [Russia and China], it is important to deposit those (gold and currency) reserves in a rational and secure way, — and we [China and Russia] together need to think of how to do that keeping in mind the uneasy situation in the global economy.” While Evgeny Fedorov, lawmaker for Putin’s United Russia party in the lower House of parliament, said, “The more gold a country has, the more sovereignty it will have if there’s a cataclysm with the dollar, the euro, the pound or any other reserve currency.”