India buys 200 metric tonnes of gold from IMF

Washington, Nov 3: In an unexpected development, India on Monday, Nov 3 bought 200 metric tonnes of gold from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for 6.8 billion dollars.

With this speedy purchase, India surprised the world as China was expected to jump at the deal that threatened to slow gold's rally.

The IMF has been planning the sale since a year but it was formally cleared in Sep 2009.

The international agency aims to sell about 403.3 metric tonnes of gold so that it can lend money to the poorest countries at concessional rates.

Speaking on the transaction with India's central bank, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) which purchased half of the gold on sale, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said, "This transaction is an important step toward achieving the objectives of the IMF's limited gold sales programme, which are to help put the Fund's finances on a sound long-term footing and enable us to step up much-needed concessional lending to the poorest countries."

The process of transaction was initiated and carried out on a daily basis over a period of two weeks from Oct 19 to Oct 30. The daily sale was made at a price based on market prices of the day.

OneIndia News