Bloomberg Economics, based on public data, estimates the Reserve Bank of India
may have sold about $12 billion of gold reserves in the two weeks to May 22
while buying roughly $7.5 billion of foreign-exchange assets to shield its FX
holdings from spillovers of the Middle East war. Senior India economist Abhishek
Gupta says the reported value of RBI gold reserves fell despite higher gold
import tariffs, which he interprets as evidence of sales. As of end-March the
RBI held 880.52 tons of gold, about 77% stored domestically.
