There are about 230 tonnes of gold in the vaults of the National Bank of Poland. This is the most amount in Central and Eastern Europe. ‘Contrary to what some people said during this war, it turned out that rating agencies and the world are very much taking gold reserves into account,’ the president of the National Bank of Poland (NBP) Adam Glapinski said at a January press conference, adding that he would be happy to increase gold reserves in the near future.

The NBP currently holds nearly 230 million tonnes of gold in its vaults, representing around 9% of its reserve assets. According to the bank’s official statistics, monetary gold was valued at around $13.3 billion ($166.7 billion of total reserve assets).

“Our gold reserves give us a leading position in the region. In comparison, the Czech Bank has gold reserves of 12 tonnes, the Hungarians have accumulated 94.5 tonnes and Slovakia 31.7 tonnes. In this respect, the National Bank of Poland ranks 23rd among central banks in the world.

According to World Gold Council statistics, Polish gold reserves give Poland the 13th place in Europe, taking into account the reserves of the European Central Bank. Germany has the most bullion – as much as 3355.1 tonnes. France is second in the ranking with 2436.8 tonnes, Italy 2451.8 tonnes is third and Russia 2298.5 tonnes is fourth.

It should be noted that Poland’s situation began to change in 2019, when the NBP radically increased the amount of bullion, buying around 95 tonnes of gold. In total, the NBP purchased 125 tonnes in 2018-2019, increasing the resource to its current level.

The US Federal Reserve has the largest gold reserves in the world. According to the World Gold Council, this is currently around 8133.5 tonnes. This reserve was influenced by the principle that central banks’ issuance of money had to be backed by gold.

Adrian Andrzejewski