Goldman Sachs Flags China’s Underreported Gold Reserve Growth
Key Takeaways
- •Goldman estimated that China bought more than 48 tonnes of gold in May, while the central bank reported only a 10-tonne increase in reserves.
- •The bank said China has officially added 40 tonnes of gold in 2026, including a 15-tonne June increase that was the largest monthly official purchase in more than two years.
- •Using a conservative estimate, Goldman said China may have accumulated about 80 tonnes of gold so far this year, or as much as 192 tonnes if the May ratio is applied more broadly.
- •Independent researcher Jan Nieuwenhuijs previously estimated that China covertly bought 570 tonnes of gold in 2024, compared with 41 tonnes reported officially.
- •Goldman said central bank gold accumulation is part of a broader reserve-diversification trend that may help support gold prices.
Goldman Sachs Flags China’s Underreported Gold Reserve Growth
Mike Maharrey
Goldman Sachs has identified that China is expanding its gold reserves far more rapidly than official data suggests, adding to a pattern that has drawn limited mainstream attention despite recurring estimates from independent researchers and market analysts.
For readers who mainly follow mainstream financial coverage, that may come as a surprise. Goldman is one of the few major financial institutions to acknowledge the pattern, although the phenomenon has been discussed for some time.
In a recent note, Goldman analysts estimated that China bought more than 48 tonnes of gold in May through the London over-the-counter (OTC) market. By contrast, the People’s Bank of China reported only a 10-tonne increase in its gold reserves.
Put another way, China appears to have increased its gold reserves by 4.8 times the amount officially reported in May.
Based on official figures, the Chinese central bank added 40 tonnes of gold to its holdings in 2026. That includes a 15-tonne increase in June, which was the largest official monthly purchase in more than two years.
Goldman used a more conservative 2.0 times multiplier and estimated that China has accumulated closer to 80 tonnes of gold so far this year. If the 4.8 times multiplier from the May data is applied instead, Chinese gold reserves would have increased by 192 tonnes.
Goldman’s nowcast tool also showed China buying 67 tonnes of gold per month on a three-month seasonally adjusted average through May.
Faster-Than-Advertised Growth Was Not a Surprise
China’s accumulation of far more gold than it publicly reports is not a new development.
Last year, Money Metals researcher Jan Nieuwenhuijs analyzed the data and concluded that the Chinese central bank covertly bought 570 tonnes of gold in 2024. The People’s Bank of China reported only a 41-tonne increase in gold reserves that year.
Nieuwenhuijs’s findings align with Goldman’s estimates.
“Since the Ukraine war began, data show, China’s central bank has been buying roughly five times more gold than what it discloses to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).”
His analysis of formal and informal sources indicated that the People’s Bank of China was holding more than 5,000 tonnes of monetary gold at the time, more than twice the amount China publicly acknowledges.
Mainstream media coverage of the issue has been limited for years, but it is beginning to gain wider attention. Last November, the Financial Times of London reported on the secret expansion of China’s gold reserves.
“China’s unreported gold purchases could be more than 10 times its official figures as it quietly tries to diversify away from the United States dollar, say analysts, highlighting the increasingly opaque sources of demand behind bullion’s record-breaking rally.”
Goldman has now added its name to the list of institutions noting the trend.
However, secretive Chinese gold accumulation appears to go back much further than the past three or four years. Analyst Jim Rickards raised similar concerns in an article published more than a decade ago.
“In mid-2015, China suddenly announced that its gold reserves had increased by 604 tonnes. The total rose from 1,054 tonnes to 1,658 tonnes. Since then, China has updated its gold reserve position monthly (in keeping with IMF criteria). All of these figures are misleading because China keeps several thousand tonnes of gold 'off the books' in a separate entity called the State Administration for Foreign Exchange (SAFE). Small amounts are transferred from SAFE to PBOC monthly, and that becomes the basis for the official reserve reports.”
Goldman also said China’s gold buying fits into a broader global trend in which central banks are expanding reserves, a backdrop that matters because official-sector demand has become a significant feature of the gold market over the past several years.
Investing Live summarized Goldman’s view this way:
“Goldman continues to frame elevated central bank accumulation as a multi-year structural trend tied to reserve diversification away from dollar assets, anchoring its $4,900 per troy ounce end-2026 price forecast. With private portfolio allocations to gold still low, the bank sees room for demand to broaden beyond central banks to private investors if geopolitical risks continue to build, keeping the medium-term price skew to the upside.”
Goldman analysts said they expect central bank gold accumulation to provide a floor for the metal’s price, even as gold faces downward pressure from a hawkish Federal Reserve.