Recently, I noticed a rather interesting phenomenon: the attitudes of global central banks toward gold are becoming increasingly distinct.

In February, central banks’ gold-purchasing activity rebounded. They net bought a total of 19 tons. Although that’s not as high as this year’s average of 26 tons per month, it’s a clear improvement compared with January’s weak performance. However, if you look at the cumulative total from the beginning of the year to now, it’s only 25 tons—still less than half of the 50 tons in the same period last year—suggesting that central banks in various countries are indeed more cautious about prices.

Poland’s central bank made the biggest move: in February, it bought 20 tons in one go, pushing its gold reserves to 570 tons and bringing gold’s share of total reserves to 31%. Their goal is 700 tons, and at this pace, it should be not far off. What’s interesting is that the governor of Poland’s central bank also mentioned an idea: they might temporarily sell part of their gold to finance defense spending, raising roughly $1.3 billion, and then buy it back after they make money—though the details are still not entirely clear.

**China’s central bank is also steadily progressing**, having bought gold for 16 consecutive months; its reserves have now reached 2,308 tons, accounting for 10% of total reserves. **Uzbekistan is even more exaggerated**—gold makes up 88% of its total reserves. This month, it added another 8 tons, and it has already been buying for five consecutive months.

But here, while central banks are buying, **Russia is actually selling**. In February, Russia offloaded 6 tons of gold. From the beginning of the year to now, Russia has already become one of the biggest gold sellers among official institutions. Turkey also reduced its holdings by 8 tons in February, but mainly due to adjustments on the Ministry of Finance side, not entirely the sale of central bank reserves. Meanwhile, in March, Turkey’s central bank took major action—estimated at using 50 tons of gold for liquidity and foreign-exchange operations. The central bank governor emphasized that these were mainly transactions such as gold currency swaps; once they mature, the gold will still return to the reserves.

I also recently saw that African central banks have started to take gold seriously. Uganda’s central bank launched a local gold acquisition program two years ago. Starting in March, they began formal procurement, aiming to buy at least 100 kilograms of gold from local producers from March to June this year, to strengthen reserves and hedge against international financial risks. Kenya’s central bank is also moving in this direction. As early as the beginning of February, their governor hinted at increasing gold allocations.

Overall, although this year’s pace of gold purchases by central banks is slower than last year, this trend clearly hasn’t changed. Poland’s aggressive buying, China’s and Uzbekistan’s continued accumulation, and the new entrants from Southeast Asia and Africa all show that emerging-market central banks are placing increasing importance on gold. Russia is a clear exception, but it doesn’t affect the market’s overall fundamentals. It looks like gold’s strategic position among global central banks will continue to rise.