Since the early 1980s foreign-exchange turnover has multiplied 33-fold, while rich countries' official reserves have only risen fourfold.
That sum is not far short of China's entire hoard of official reserves.
The dollar accounts for over half of official reserves, for example, more than twice America's share of global output.
G7, supposedly the world's main economic club, to discuss currencies when China, which holds the largest official reserves, is not a member.
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The dollar's dominance of trade invoicing, investment and official reserves is much bigger than America's weight in the world economy seems to justify.
That sounds impressive, but their influence over global financial markets is more modest, because official reserves account for only around 5% of the world's total stash of financial assets.
Such measures are a far cry from 1997, when rather than urging households to spend, governments in Asia begged them to hand over their gold jewellery to be melted down to bolster official reserves.
The International Monetary Fund reported overnight that Russia, Turkey and other Asian nations increased their official gold reserves in March.
The gold market bulls did get somewhat of a boost overnight as the International Monetary Fund reported several countries have added to their official gold reserves.
However, there is some lingering concern among gold traders that if Cyprus sells some of its official gold reserves to help finance its European Union bailout package, other countries like Italy, Portugal and Spain may do the same.
The privately owned gold held in Turkish commercial banks has shown up on the balance sheet for the central bank, resulting in news reports of inflated official-sector reserves in the country, the consultancy said.
Months earlier, an international magazine said it had seen a leaked official document saying that reserves were only half the government's standard boast: that Kuwait has a tenth of the world's.
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The vertical cityscape belies the fact that around 40% of Hong Kong is official park land, with wildlife reserves holding Chinese porcupines, macaques, leopards and wild boar.
WikiLeaks made public last month that a senior official from the state-owned oil company believes Saudi reserves are overstated by 40%.
Sudden shifts in official reserve holdings are also unlikely, despite the disproportionate size of the euro area's own reserves.
And Syria's ambassador to Lebanon, Ali Abdul Karim, said Syria reserves the right to a "surprise retaliation" against Israel, according to Hezbollah's official website, Moqawama.
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While there have been no official announcements, some market participants are concerned that some central banks may yet be compelled to sell gold reserves to deal with their debt issues, Zarembski said.
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