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Emma Ma

Amid persistent geopolitical strains and growing concerns over the weaponisation of the US dollar, European central banks have continued shifting gold reserves away from US vaults – with the latest move announced by the Netherlands – and analysts say China could take it as an opportunity to draw more bullion flows into custody hubs in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
De Nederlandsche Bank, the Dutch central bank, said in a news release on Wednesday that it had transferred 86 tonnes of gold from vaults in the United States and Canada to London between March and August. Following the relocation, the share of Dutch gold held in New York fell 12.8 percentage points to 18.5 per cent.
The bank linked the move to “increasing geopolitical unrest” and said it would “strengthen its crisis preparedness”.
“A more balanced distribution of the gold stock between North America, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands helps to spread risks,” it said.
European central banks appear united in re-evaluating their offshore gold holdings.
In results disclosed in April, the French central bank said it had sold 129 tonnes of bullion held in New York before repurchasing equivalent high-standard gold bars in Europe. Serbia and Germany have pursued similar courses of action in recent years.
“There has been a fundamental shift in how countries view the security of their sovereign assets, and this shift will not reverse in the short term regardless of whether geopolitical tensions ease or escalate,” said Liang Yonghui, deputy secretary general of the China Non-Ferrous Metals Industry Association’s gold and silver branch.
She said the earliest catalyst for the shift could be traced back to 2022, when the Ukraine war broke out.
“That year, some of Russia’s gold reserves held in overseas markets were frozen, which overturned many countries’ long-held perceptions over the safety of overseas reserve assets,” Liang said.
The World Gold Council’s Central Bank Gold Reserves Survey 2026, which was published in June, revealed an increase in central banks’ vault-location adjustments.
Of the 76 central-bank respondents, 10 per cent said they had diversified their overseas storage locations in the preceding 12 months – which the council described as “a notable uptick” from the 2 per cent in the 2025 survey.
Seven per cent of respondents said they planned to boost domestic gold storage in the coming 12 months, while 9 per cent intended to diversify overseas storage locations – up from 2 per cent in last year’s survey.
“Drawing on the examples and influence of European central banks, more countries are expected to re-evaluate their overseas reserve assets,” Liang said.
Against that backdrop, China has accelerated its push to build more gold custody infrastructure, with Shanghai and Hong Kong at the forefront.
Shanghai laid the groundwork in 2021, when the municipal government issued policies supporting Pudong’s high-level reform and opening-up. One provision explicitly called for developing “a large national-scale precious-metals depository”, a task assigned to the Shanghai Gold Exchange.
Few official updates on the project have emerged since. An executive at the exchange, who requested anonymity, said the work remained under way, with the aim of attracting gold reserves from overseas central banks.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong is positioning itself as a regional gold trading hub, with plans to expand its vault storage capacity to more than 2,000 tonnes within three years. As part of that push, the city recently launched a trial gold clearing and settlement system involving 11 Chinese and international banks.
“The financial framework ensures China’s gold reserves – whether stored onshore or offshore – operate independently of foreign institutional systems,” Yan Zeyang, a researcher at the Beijing-based China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, wrote in an article published in January. “Meanwhile, it can provide secure vaulting alternatives for other central banks.
“Amid heightened dollar-sanction risks, China is poised to draw gold reserve inflows into Shanghai and Hong Kong, which will further strengthen China’s influence within the global gold market.”
At the end of August, following 22 straight months of central‑bank purchases, China held over 2,300 tonnes of gold reserves. Authorities do not disclose how much of that is stored overseas.


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Geopolitical tensions and US dollar concerns have seen Shanghai and Hong Kong step up efforts to build gold storage infrastructure


Geopolitical tensions and US dollar concerns have seen Shanghai and Hong Kong step up efforts to build gold storage infrastructure.


Golden opportunity: can China lure European central bank gold reserves from US?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Geopolitical tensions and US dollar concerns have seen Shanghai and Hong Kong step up efforts to build gold storage infrastructure

Geopolitical tensions and US dollar concerns have seen Shanghai and Hong Kong step up efforts to build gold storage infrastructure