Has Singapore squandered 94.7% of Her gold reserves???!!!
Dr Goh Keng Swee was so prescient: foreseeing the inflation of gold price post USA abandonment of gold standard of currency exchange (end of Bretton Woods circa 1971): he bought 100 tons of gold from African finance minister @ USD40/ t oz. Today, gold is worth USD1200/ troy ounce (=S$~50,000/kg according to UOB: https://uniservices1.uobgroup.com/secure/online_rates/gold_and_silver_prices.jsp ) (30x price inflation between 1968 to 2014).
Price of 100 tons of gold= 100,000kg * $50k= S$5billion.
But the straits times says SG gold reserves were worth only USD212million only (March 2010), worth maybe S$265million (@ 1:1.25 exc rate). So given the worth of 100tons of gold to be S$5billion, has a large fraction (94.7%) of national gold reserves been misplaced or stolen???!!!
Lost, stolen or is state media just sloppy/ wrong???!!!
The architect of Singapore's prosperity
Dr Goh Keng Swee was so prescient: foreseeing the inflation of gold price post USA abandonment of gold standard of currency exchange (end of Bretton Woods circa 1971): he bought 100 tons of gold from African finance minister @ USD40/ t oz. Today, gold is worth USD1200/ troy ounce (=S$~50,000/kg according to UOB: https://uniservices1.uobgroup.com/secure/online_rates/gold_and_silver_prices.jsp ) (30x price inflation between 1968 to 2014).
Price of 100 tons of gold= 100,000kg * $50k= S$5billion.
But the straits times says SG gold reserves were worth only USD212million only (March 2010), worth maybe S$265million (@ 1:1.25 exc rate). So given the worth of 100tons of gold to be S$5billion, has a large fraction (94.7%) of national gold reserves been misplaced or stolen???!!!
Lost, stolen or is state media just sloppy/ wrong???!!!
The architect of Singapore's prosperity
6. Gold reserves
Dr Goh bought Singapore's first 100 tons - around 101,600kg - of gold reserves from the South African Finance
Minister, then Dr Nicolaas Diederichts, in a private exchange at the World Bank meeting in 1968. The minister
reportedly went to Dr Goh's hotel room and turned up the TV volume before discussing the deal.
After agreeing to sell the gold, he took out a United States dollar note and cut it in half, giving one half to Dr Goh.
This was used for verification of identity when the Singapore representatives - Mr Ngiam Tong Dow and veteran banker Wee Cho Yaw - later met the South African sellers in Switzerland.
And that's how Singapore obtained its first gold reserves, at US$40 per ounce.
As of March (2010), Singapore had about US$212 million in official gold reserves, according to the MAS website. Gold price is now nearly US$1,250 an ounce.
The architect of Singapore's prosperity