Central banks have been buying gold on a net basis since 2008, reversing a period of steady net sales that extended back to 1965 with only a few exceptions. Last year cen-tral banks added an estimated 9.5 million ounces in 2012. That was up from around 9.2 million ounces in 2011 but down from 10.8 million ounces in 2010. In 2013 CPM Group projects central banks will buy around 10.5 mil-lion ounces again. Of the acquisitions in 2012, around 1.1 million ounces was at the Bank for International Settle-ments, and most likely represented gold-dollar swaps with commercial banks to allow the commercial banks to meet liquidity ratio requirements, rather than outright, permanent acquisitions through purchases by a central bank for addition to their monetary reserves of gold.
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