The Islamic Republic of Iran & Gold

Iran denies Swiss paper's claim in withdrawal of Gold assets
Tehran, March 31, IRNA
Iran-Swiss-Gold
An informed source in Central Bank of Iran on Friday denied the news published in a Swiss daily on withdrawal of 250 tons of Iran's gold reserves from that country's Credit Bank.
The Central Bank official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Economy Desk at IRNA Head office in Tehran Desk, "The news published in the Thursday edition of the Bern-based daily Der Bund, on Iran's withdrawal of 250 tons of its gold reserves, worth five billion Swiss francs, and transferring them to Tehran is totally baseless." Der Bund had added in its story that apparently Iran has ever since last October withdrawn 700 tons of its gold reserves, worth sixteen billion Swiss franks, from various Western monetary funds and transferred them to other unknown destinations. Source
According to the CIA World Fact book Iran is holding $40.06 billion (2005 est.) reserves of foreign exchange and gold.


RTS to launch commodity futures trading in May
18:24 | 03/ 04/ 2006

MOSCOW, April 3 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Trading System (RTS) stock exchange will launch commodity futures trading, including precious metals, agricultural products and petroleum products, in May, the RTS president said Monday.

"We consider futures on gold, agricultural products and metals very promising," Oleg Safonov said.

He told a roundtable that the country's main stock exchange was seeking to allow its clients to trade commodities and that all the necessary related documents had been submitted to the Federal Service for Financial Markets.

Safonov said the RTS would coordinate basic prices with international agencies, that commodity derivatives were a priority, and that the futures market would be developed within an existing segment of FORTS, the RTS derivatives market.

Safonov said the RTS was also planning to launch futures contracts on a short term interest rates by June 1.

"We want to launch this kind of futures contract relatively quickly," he said.

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