AFP, Frankfurt :
The Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, said Wednesday it had returned to German soil all of its gold kept in Paris and some reserves from the US, three years ahead of schedule.
Some 374 tonnes of the metal, 11 percent of the German stock, left the vaults at the Banque de France, or Bank of France, while 300 tonnes have been removed from the Federal Reserve in New York to the Bundesbank vaults in Frankfurt, board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele told journalists.
The secret shipments were finished far ahead of the 2020 deadline at a cost of some 7.7 million euros ($9.1 million), bringing the share of German gold stored at home to 50 percent.
Shipments have been underway since a 2013 board decision to return the precious ingots home.
Germany began securing its reserves abroad during the Cold War, when the Bundesbank preferred to keep most of its gold safe from the prospect of a sudden Soviet invasion.
The Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, said Wednesday it had returned to German soil all of its gold kept in Paris and some reserves from the US, three years ahead of schedule.
Some 374 tonnes of the metal, 11 percent of the German stock, left the vaults at the Banque de France, or Bank of France, while 300 tonnes have been removed from the Federal Reserve in New York to the Bundesbank vaults in Frankfurt, board member Carl-Ludwig Thiele told journalists.
The secret shipments were finished far ahead of the 2020 deadline at a cost of some 7.7 million euros ($9.1 million), bringing the share of German gold stored at home to 50 percent.
Shipments have been underway since a 2013 board decision to return the precious ingots home.
Germany began securing its reserves abroad during the Cold War, when the Bundesbank preferred to keep most of its gold safe from the prospect of a sudden Soviet invasion.
