Russian businessmen say it is unlikely that gold exports will be redirected

We produce about 330 tons of gold annually, worth about $20 billion, which is 10% of the world’s volume. He told Sputnik news agency that redirecting such quantities of minerals to new roads is impractical (…) There are simply no vacant outlets. “

The union leader added that in the market there is “a small circle of actors who have known each other for decades” and that gold “has not been a scarcity on a global scale in the past 10 years”.

In this sense, Kachuba argued that, on the contrary, there is a surplus of one or two per cent, “so it is almost impossible to transfer production to anyone like this,” he warned.

At the same time, he emphasized that the declaration of the G7 economies (Germany, Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom) that they would work in unison to reduce Russia’s income from the export of the metal. Do not catch up with the sector.

The executive noted that at the beginning of last March, the organization that controls the precious metals market in London, the London Bullion Market Association, suspended six Russian gold refineries included in the list of good delivery.

He added in this regard, that at the end of the same month, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on dealings with the metal related to the Bank of Russia.

The union leader admitted: “We were aware that sooner or later the hostile countries would extend their sanctions to include gold production in Russia.”

For his part, Russia’s permanent representative to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, said last week that the ban on gold exports will not have an impact on the national economy.

In this sense, he added, if sanctions are imposed, it will not be limited to exports to Western countries, because Russia is among the potential buyers of economic giants such as China and India.

The diplomat’s comments came in response to the announcement by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, who said that the community bloc is studying the way in which the refusal to import Russian gold will only harm Moscow.

acl / odf