Gold is now back in vogue among central banks worldwide as the ultimate safe asset. The Russia-Ukraine war has propelled a sharp and apparently self-feeding increase in the number of central banks purchasing the yellow metal. This has spread well beyond China, Russia and other countries interested in setting up alternative systems to the dollar-based monetary order.

The driving force behind central banks’ gold purchases has now widened into a broader desire for asset diversification, together with some qualms about a weakening of the dollar’s longer-term international role.

Building on OMFIF’s ‘Seven Ages of Gold’ analysis, ‘Gold and the new world disorder’, published in partnership with Commodity Discovery Fund and GoldRepublic, explores new developments in central bank gold policies.