The expert explained why the Russians keep “under the mattress” gold worth 3 trillion rubles

The population does not use their jewelry in any way

Russians store gold items worth more than 3 trillion rubles at home. We are talking about jewelry, coins and ingots. Moreover, the vast majority of items are not used in any way, they are not invested in anything, they lie “under the mattress” for years. People do not know what to do with them, the operator of the physical gold retail market Goldex found out during a survey. Meanwhile, in reality, the picture may be somewhat different.

74% of women and 26% of men are ready to sell their property, and 37% of respondents have no experience in selling precious metal products. Approximately two-thirds estimated the total amount of gold at home at more than 50 thousand rubles, and 27% – at 100 thousand or more. About how adequately all these figures reflect the true situation with the amount of gold in the hands of the population, we asked Alexei Vyazovsky, Vice President of the Golden Mint House company.

– It is very difficult to speak in this case about representativeness and adequacy, – the interlocutor of “MK” argues. – In fact, we cannot know how much gold the Russians hold and how much it costs in rubles or dollars: there is no single center in the country that tracks this information. But there is absolutely reliable official data, for example, in 2022, individuals bought from banks over 75 tons in bullion alone, and from January 1 to May 1 of this year – about 35 tons. As for investment coins, it is only known that several tons were sold. Mints, as well as the Central Bank, do not disclose figures for their shipments. There is no information on jewelry gold. In general, this is an extremely opaque, closed area, a large part of which relates to smuggling, in particular from Turkey. Here another problem of methodology arises: what kind of gold to take into account, how to take into account, whether to take into account the secondary market?

– What is the reason for the explosive interest of citizens in physical gold in 2022? In the old days, it was bought at two or three tons a year at most.

– The state abolished 20% VAT on bullion, abolished personal income tax, minted an ounce “George the Victorious” and a very small one – three grams (even pensioners can buy it). Let me remind you that earlier we had only quarter-ounce coins weighing 7.7 grams, despite the fact that the world standard is an ounce (31 grams). In a word, a real liberalization of the domestic market has begun, and people reacted to this in a natural way. Under the sanctions, gold was assigned a special role – to become a working alternative to cash dollars and euros, the import of which into Russia was banned by the West. If this year permission to trade in gold bars is granted to dealer companies (since April 1, it has affected Goznak and refineries), the sales level of 75 tons will be easily surpassed. Let me remind you that more than 300 tons of gold are produced annually on the territory of the Russian Federation. We have a very powerful gold mining industry, and no sanctions will break it.

In addition, Vyazovsky continues, there is a bill on artisanal activities that allows individuals to legally mine the precious metal. Now only legal entities that have a license to use subsoil can do this. Private fishing would solve the problem of “black diggers” that is extremely urgent today, which, according to unofficial estimates, account for up to 30 tons of gold mined in the country. Thousands of these people go to the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Magadan Region, Transbaikalia, Chukotka, and operate there uncontrollably, without a license, without paying taxes. There is also a sensible idea to organize in the regions state points for the purchase of gold mined by private entrepreneurs in order to prevent illegal trafficking.