2014/10/06

And The Gold Bank Appears: following Fekete, China is embracing New Austrian Economics as the foundation for the new International Monetary System

You might already know that China aims for Official Gold Reserves at 8500 tonnes.


But you surely not know about the golden treasure embedded in the original opinion editorial by Song Xin, General Manager of the China National Gold Group Corporation, Party Secretary and President of the China Gold Association, 07/30/2014. 

He spoke about the strategic role of gold, and new institutions needed for gold circulation, precisely in the logic based on New Austrian Economics that I'm using in my articles on Conscience Sociale and elsewhere since 2011. [articles in english ; en français]. 

His sentences about the GOLD BANK is truly one of strong evidence of what I called the 'Grande Renaissance' which will transform the whole world in the following decades (another one is the growing interest in Agile Democracy).

Chosen excerpts of Xin's editorial [Translation by BullionStar], with emphasis mine :

"For China, the strategic mission of gold lies in the support of RMB internationalization, and so let China become a world economic power and make sure that the "China Dream" is realized. 

Gold is the only thing carrying the dual mantels of a commodity as well as a monetary substance. It's both a very 'honest' asset and forms the very material basis for modern fiat currencies. Historically, gold has played an irreplaceable role in responses to financial crises and wars as it comes to protecting a country's economic security. Because of this, gold carries with it an honored and divine-given strategic mission in the ascend of the Chinese people and the pursuit of the "China Dream".

The Important Function Of Gold.

Gold is the world's only monetary asset that has no counter party risk, and is the only cross-nation, cross-language, cross-ethnicity, cross-religion and cross-culture globally recognized monetary asset. Gold is the last protection for a country's economic security; it safeguards a nations sovereignty in times of crises. [...] 

From our country's point of view, gold has played an irreplaceable role in the development of our economic society.[...] After 1989, we suffered economic sanctions from Western countries for a while and the PBOC used our gold reserves to enter into swap agreements to obtain needed foreign currencies. Right now, gold is still serving its functions to protect against economic risks; contributing in ever more important ways to our financial security. For the moment, although in general the international scene is peaceful, conflicts can develop in certain regions. If there should be a blockade or regional war, there could be only one method of payment left: gold.

The strategic Mission Of Gold.

Since the 18th People Congress, general secretary Xi Jinping brought up the goal to revive our nation, to realize the "Chinese dream ". One important part of this dream is to have a strong economy. Though China is already the world's second largest economy, there is still a long way to go to become an economic powerhouse. The most critical part to this is that we don't have enough say in matters such as international finance and matters regarding the monetary system, the most obvious of which is the fact that the RMB hasn't fully internationalized.

Gold is a monetary asset that transcends national sovereignty, is very powerful to settle obligations when everything else fails, hence it's exactly the basis of a currency moving up in the international arena. When the British Pound and the USD became international currencies, their gold reserve as a share of total world gold reserves was 50% and 60% respectively; when the Euro was introduced, the combined gold reserves of the member countries was more than 10,000 tonnes, more than the US had. If the RMB wants to achieve international status, it must have popular acceptance and a stable value. To this end, other than having assurance from the issuing nation, it is very important to have enough gold as the foundation, raising the 'gold content' of the RMB. Therefore, to China, the meaning and mission of gold is to support the RMB to become an internationally accepted currency and make China an economic powerhouse.

In this view, our gold reserves are very low, both in terms of a nominal level as well as a percentage of official reserves. [...] The average of the world is about 10%, but for us it's only 1%.

That is why, in order for gold to fulfill its destined mission, we must raise our gold holdings a great deal, and do so with a solid plan. Step one should take us to the 4,000 tonnes mark, more than Germany and become number two in the world, next, we should increase step by step towards 8,500 tonnes, more than the US.

All-round, Multi-channel Increases In Gold Levels. Fulfill Our Part In Enabling Gold To Accomplish Its Strategic Mission.

How to achieve growth in our gold reserve? Apart from the PBOC directly buying in the open market, we should use also use the following strategies:

1. Relax gold import controls, grant large scale gold enterprises permits to import gold. In 2013, our gold consumption reached 1176.4 tonnes. Compared to the 426 tonnes of local production, there is a shortage of 750 tonnes. To meet this gap, we presently let the 12 commercial banks with gold-trading rights import standard gold ingots. But these banks lack the ability to refine and assay gold, they can only import standardized gold, missing the large amount of non-standardized gold and wasting the international resources that we could reach. By relaxing import controls, the large-scale gold companies can then obtain this gold and use their own technology to refine it into standard quality gold. This can help meet demand in the market, or turn gold into official reserves as required.

2. Establish a gold reserve building fund. This can be seeded using capital from the State Treasury, and open it for participation by private-sector capital in the public. It should be controlled by the State and used to target diverse off-shore gold resources, acquire mines and raw gold and in so doing, extend our reach beyond our borders and add a layer of opaque reserves to otherwise standard reserve numbers. 

3. Establish a Gold bank. We need to establish our gold bank as soon as possible, and enable it to break the barrier between the commodity and monetary world. It can further help us acquire reserves and give us more say and control in the gold market. It may be guided under the PBOC and led by the China Gold Association, involving leading gold industry companies and commercial banks, and it's business would include: gold pricing (fix), gold financing and leasing, gold-guaranteed payments, gold saving accounts, gold lending, gold production chain financing and issuance and trading of paper gold and other gold investments. This gold bank can then naturally use market-oriented methods to change commodity gold into monetary gold reserves, thus help us increase our strategic gold reserves."

And here they are, as we have anticipated: the Mint, the gold Clearing House, the Gold Bills, the Gold Bonds. Hats off, Pr. Fekete! 
Les bonnes idées ne meurent jamais. C'est même à çà qu'on les reconnaît.



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ps: Dear readers, with this reform of the IMS now on the right track, this was my last post on Conscience Sociale, which is put on hold. Thanks for your constancy and your always growing interest : more than 10,000 pages viewed each month, specially by education, research institutes, banks and ministers all over the world.

My last advice would be to read again from time to time the most important and unfinished page on this site.

À mesure qu'on avance dans la vie, on s'aperçoit que le courage le plus rare est celui de penser.
(F.A. Thibault, 'Anatole France', 1844 – 1924)


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