GOLD prices leapt as European central banks announced a five-year
moratorium on gold sales from official reserves, limiting new sales to
2,000 tonnes in total. Previously announced sales by Britain and
Switzerland will go ahead, so these two can take advantage of higher
prices.
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Pity. (And if anyone expresses sympathy for South African miners, those
needs would have been better met with a programme of reconstruction of the
economy based on reparations to the region to compensate for the wars of
apartheid.)
Although this reported step delays the demystification of gold, Brown has
shown himself to be tactically shrewd as well as strategically shrewd on
this question. It may not dent his claim to be a reformer of world
financial structures.
Chris Burford
London
