Central banks resume net gold buying in April as Poland leads again

World Gold Council data published on 3 June 2026 showed central banks resuming net gold purchases in April, adding 19 tonnes globally. Poland was the largest buyer at 14 tonnes, taking its year-to-date total to 45 tonnes and its reserves to 595 tonnes, roughly 30% of its total foreign reserves. China added 8 tonnes, its highest monthly addition since December 2024 and its eighteenth consecutive month of buying, lifting its official holdings to 2,322 tonnes. The Czech Republic extended a remarkable streak of its own, buying gold for a 38th consecutive month, while Russia was a net seller for a fourth straight month, taking its year-to-date sales to 22 tonnes.

Uzbekistan, a comparatively new but aggressive entrant to the buyers' list, had accumulated 24 tonnes year-to-date by April, second only to Poland, and now holds gold equivalent to about 88% of its total reserves, one of the highest gold allocations of any central bank in the world.

Why African miners track this data closely

Central bank purchases and sales, reported with a roughly five-week lag by the World Gold Council, have become one of the most closely watched inputs for gold miners because official-sector demand tends to be less price-sensitive than investor flows, providing a demand floor that persists even when speculative positioning turns bearish. For South African producers navigating a year of extreme price swings, that steadier component of demand offered some reassurance that gold's rally, while volatile, rested on more than momentum trading.

Context from the 2025 survey

The Council noted that in its most recent annual survey, 95% of central bank respondents expected global official gold reserves to keep rising over the following 12 months, up from 81% a year earlier, a trend that would be reaffirmed and extended in the Council's 2026 survey published later in the year.

The steady drip of monthly disclosures, each covering activity with roughly a five-week lag, had by this point become a fixture of gold market analysis, with traders and mining company treasury teams alike building the Council's monthly release into their own short-term price models.

Market strategists said Poland's aggressive accumulation, in particular, had become something of a bellwether for broader emerging-market reserve diversification trends, with several smaller central banks reportedly citing Warsaw's strategy as a reference point for their own reserve committees.

Sources

• World Gold Council: Central bank gold statistics: Central banks resume net buying in April, 03 Jun 2026

Photo: South African rand banknotes; central bank gold reserves are one of the forces supporting the currencies and prices tracked by African producers. Rijksmuseum, Wikimedia Commons, CC0.