Amid the record gold price, the SA Reserve Bank added $1bn in value (R19.38bn) to its reserves in March in line with Nedbank and FNB forecasts.
The increase in gross reserves was mainly driven by a slightly firmer rand exchange rate and the higher gold price, the Bank said on Monday. The gold price has increased more than 9% in March.
As gold continues to rally on safe-haven demand, the Bank’s gold reserves have grown by $2.04bn since the start of the year to end-March, with $12.59bn of bullion.
While global central bank gold buying soared in 2024, SA has not participated in the buying spree and has maintained its gold reserves at 4-million ounces for more than a decade, according to Nedbank senior economist Isaac Matshego.
The surge in central bank buying, a contributor to the current gold rally, began in 2022 after the US froze Russia’s central bank assets in response to its invasion of Ukraine.
This resulted in three consecutive years of more than 1,000 tonnes of central bank gold purchases from 2022-24 — more than double the rate recorded in 2010-21.
A recent report by the World Gold Council showed that demand for bullion from central bankers has persisted in 2025, with global central bank gold reserves rising by 24 tonnes in February, led by Poland, China, Turkey and the Czech Republic.
As policy uncertainty around US President Donald Trump’s administration threatens to revive inflation and disrupt global trade, stronger-than-expected central bank demand provides some upside risk to the gold price forecast in future, according to the World Gold Council.
“The big upside risk on the central bank side is if we see more instability, more weaponisation and greater use of tariffs or sanctions that dissuade people from engaging with the US, which might accelerate the move by central banks to hold more gold,” World Gold Council market strategist John Reade told Business Day in February.
The rising price of gold has already beaten expectations in 2025, having breached $3,000/oz last month, a level that major banks such as Morgan Stanley and UBS last year predicted would only come in the second half.
Updated: April 7 2025
This story has been updated with new information.
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