The Central Bank of Rwanda has announced that starting from the fiscal year starting in July 2025, it will purchase gold as an asset to be used for savings and investments, to address economic challenges and to create new mechanisms to help the economy when it faces a crisis.
For days, regional banks have been studying ways to start buying gold, with Rwanda joining other countries such as Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.
The Governor of the Central Bank of Rwanda, Soraya Hakuziyaremye, told reporters that buying gold is a new way to help the BNR in savings.
She said, “As the Central Bank of Rwanda, we have decided to start looking at ways to produce gold. This is a new asset, and as we continue to monitor our colleagues, we will announce to you by the end of the next fiscal year, the amount of gold we will have been able to buy.”
Hakuziyaremye said that the main goal of BNR in foreign exchange savings and investments is to ensure that money is available and investments are made, so that assets with tangible value and interest are generated.
“If you look at gold today, it is passing through. So what we are basing ourselves on today is promising.”
Soraya said that the board of directors has already approved that the BNR will start investing in gold, and that it will start with the fiscal year that begins in July 2025. “That is when we will start adding gold to what we count as our assets.”
For many years, gold has been an asset used by Central Banks for investment and savings. Currently, looking around the world, National Banks are estimated to have gold assets of 35 thousand tons, at least 1/5 of the gold that has been mined.
The main importance of gold for national banks is to establish various forms of savings, especially since gold does not lose value in the market even if the national currency and economy are not stable.
Many countries base their savings on dollars. Savings in gold offer greater security than savings in physical currency because gold is not dependent on the operations of any bank and can be affected by misunderstandings or political issues.
For example, Russia’s dollar assets were frozen due to its war in Ukraine. This is not the case with gold, which is a physical asset.
The Central Bank of Tanzania began buying gold in June 2023, and by September 2024 it had accumulated 418 kilograms. At that time, gold miners and traders were required to deposit 20% of their assets with the Central Bank of Tanzania to create a large reserve.
