Handelsblatt report translated; and a statement by German gold repatriation advocates

9a ET Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

Below are, first, an English translation by the German financial journalist Lars Schall of yesterday's report in Handelsblatt about the Bundesbank's plan to retrieve German gold vaulted abroad, and, second, a response by Peter Boehringer, founder of the German "Repatriate Our Gold" campaign.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

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Bundesbank Wants to Bring German Gold Back

From Handelsblatt, Dusseldorf
Monday, January 14, 2013

http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/reserven-bundesbank-will...

The Bundesbank has worked out a new concept by which it wants to store its gold reserves in the future. According to information of the Handelsblatt (Tuesday edition), this concept, which will be announced Wednesday, intends to strengthen the domestic locations and store less gold in New York and even to store no gold at all in Paris.

The central bank thereby reacts to a report of the Federal Court of Audit, which surveys the financial statements of the Bundesbank and had advised the bank to prepare and document a current concept of depositories.

Currently the gold of the Bundesbank is stored, according to its statements, in New York, London, Paris, and Frankfurt. At the U.S. central bank 45 percent of the total 3,396 tonnes of gold are stored; at the Bank of England in London 13 percent; at the Banque de France in Paris 11 percent; and 31 percent at Bundesbank headquarters in Frankfurt. This distribution is about to change now.

Bundesbank board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele already said last fall that there was no compelling reason for storage in the French capital. Originally, the Federal Republic of Germany distributed its gold during the Cold War and the division of Germany for security reasons to various partner countries, including France. This argument does no longer apply. Another argument against Paris: Unlike in London or New York, in the event of a world currency crisis the Bundesbank would receive no foreign exchange.

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Statement by Peter Boehringer
Founder, Repatriate Our Gold, Germany
Wednesday, January 15, 2013

Repatriate our Gold -- http://www.gold-action.de and http://www.gold-action.de/campaign.html -- is of course satisfied with the development at the Bundesbank. This is a huge success that would have been almost beyond imagination 1 1/2 years ago when we started our initiative.

But:

1) The Bundesbank has not yet given details of this repatriation.

2) It is unfortunate that obviously the Bundesbank still does not plan to publish official gold bar number lists, which are important to prove or disprove double ownerships of bars and loans of German gold bars abroad that could have been used to manipulate the price of gold in the past.

3) There is no word about a proper physical and independent audit of gold in the Bundesbank's own vaults.

We will see how things develop. But we are proud of the success so far.