There has been much conjecture since 2014 about the increasing numbers in the “precious metals” category on the balance sheets of listed Chinese commercial banks. By the end of 2015 China’s largest banks were holding RMB 598 billion in precious metals.

There are 16 listed Chinese commercial banks on China’s A-share market but Huaxia Bank didn’t disclose its precious metals holding in its annual report. If all aggregated precious metals holdings relate to gold, the upper bound is approximately 2,682 tonnes of gold.