A nice round figure. But where will the money come from? Gold perhaps?
Discussion at a summit of G20 world leaders about selling International Monetary Fund gold to raise extra funds refers to sales over and above existing plans, a minister said on Thursday.
“What’s referred to here is in addition to what has been previously,” Treasury minister Stephen Timms told reporters at the summit.
A G20 source said earlier there was a reference in the summit communique to IMF gold sales but “the language had not been firmed up” and it was unclear whether it would be separate from the 400 tonnes of gold the IMF committed to sell last year as part of a broader restructuring of its income.
So it has already been agreed that 400 tonnes of gold will be sold, but they might need to sell more. That’s of the nearly 3000 tonnes the IMF holds. If more gold needs to be sold to fund fiscal measures, the price of gold, currently hovering at about $905 an ounce, could fall.
It is an interesting dilemma for people who want to move to gold as a hedge against expected inflation coming next year, on foot of all the money being printed for stimulus packages worldwide.