February 25, 2019
ROME (Reuters) – Economy Minister Giovanni Tria said on Monday that nobody could use Italy’s gold reserves other than the European Central Bank, for financial operations.
Claudio Borghi, the economics spokesman of the ruling League party, has tabled a bill intended to establish that the gold is the property of the state, rather than of the Bank of Italy where the metal is held, a point which is disputed in Italy.
Borghi denied that this signaled the government wanted to sell some of the gold hoard, reckoned to be the world’s third largest, to help resolve its public finance difficulties, as one newspaper had reported.
(Reporting by Giuseppe Fonte, writing by Gavin Jones)
Comments (No)