2 Central Banks, 1 Gold Price: Egypt’s Reserves Hit a Record as Gold Revaluation Dominates and China Buys for a 22nd Month
2 of the world’s most watched reserve managers published their August tables within hours of each other on Monday, and the same number sits inside both. Egypt’s net international reserves reached a record 57,214.5 million dollars, the Central Bank of Egypt said, up 920.6 million on the month; within its official reserve assets template the revaluation of gold more than accounted for the whole increase. China’s foreign exchange reserves stood at 3,438.325 billion dollars, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange reported, up 19.549 billion, with gold holdings rising for a 22nd consecutive month to 76.73 million fine troy ounces. Back out the implied gold price from each set of tables and the 2 banks land within a dollar of each other, at 4,562.8 dollars an ounce in Cairo and about 4,562 in Beijing, on our calculation.
Egypt: the month’s increase is a revaluation
The headline rise is 1.64 percent in a month and 16.17 percent over 12 months, on our calculation, the 26th consecutive monthly increase in the bank’s published series from 46,383.9 million in June 2024. The separate official reserve assets template the bank publishes under the IMF’s data dissemination standard tells the more revealing story. It shows official reserve assets rising 870.0 million dollars across August, of which gold contributed 1,919.6 million, an 11.20 percent increase on our calculation. The holding itself barely moved: 4,176,922.73 fine troy ounces against 4,168,944.59 in July, a rise of 7,978 ounces or 0.191 percent. An 11.20 percent gain in value on a 0.191 percent gain in volume is a price event, not a purchase of any size; the implied valuation works out at 4,562.8 dollars an ounce against 4,111.0 in July, up 10.99 percent on our calculation.
| Egypt, official reserve assets, million dollars | July | August |
|---|---|---|
| Gold | 17,138.7 | 19,058.3 |
| Foreign currency reserves | 15,540.3 | 16,287.2 |
| Other reserve assets | 20,060.3 | 18,101.1 |
| Special drawing rights | 445.8 | 606.3 |
| IMF reserve position | 372.0 | 374.2 |
| Total | 53,557.1 | 54,427.1 |
| Gold holding, fine troy ounces | 4,168,944.59 | 4,176,922.73 |
| Implied gold valuation, dollars an ounce (Edge) | 4,111.0 | 4,562.8 |
From the bank’s own data dissemination template for August 2026, published the same day as the headline release. Both months are marked provisional. This total is not the same measure as the 57,214.5 million headline figure, which the bank publishes on a different definition and does not reconcile to these components.
The other components fell in aggregate. Foreign currency reserves added 746.9 million and special drawing rights 160.5 million, while the line the bank labels other reserve assets fell 1,959.2 million. Excluding gold, the remaining components declined by about 1,050 million dollars, on our calculation: the gold revaluation did more than lift the total, it covered a decline elsewhere. Gold now accounts for 35.02 percent of official reserve assets, against 32.00 percent in July on our calculation, a share that has risen without a meaningful purchase.
Set against the external position, the reserve stock covers 34.7 percent of the 164,776.4 million dollars of external debt the bank reported at end March, on our calculation. For the 9 months to March the current account ran a 14.6 billion dollar deficit while the overall balance of payments deficit was held to 1.8 billion, and remittances from Egyptians abroad reached 47.3 billion dollars in the fiscal year to June. The bank publishes no import cover measure and no revision policy for the provisional label, so neither can be stated here.
China: 22 months of buying, and reserves still below May
The ounce series has risen every month since November 2024, when the holding went to 72.96 million from 72.80 million after 7 months unchanged. Across the full 22 month run the holding has increased by 3.93 million ounces, an average of about 179,000 ounces per monthly increase on our calculation; the 8 month count some reports carry is simply the number of months so far in 2026. The dollar value of the gold moved far more than the metal. It rose 14.27 percent to 350.080 billion dollars while the holding rose 0.85 percent, which puts the implied valuation at about 4,562 dollars an ounce against 4,027 in July, up 13.30 percent on our calculation.
| China, foreign exchange reserves, billion dollars | Level |
|---|---|
| May 2026 | 3,442.238 |
| August 2026 | 3,438.325 |
| July 2026 | 3,418.776 |
| August 2025 | 3,322.154 |
From the administration’s official reserve assets tables, converted from its published unit of hundreds of millions of dollars. Ranked high to low.
August is 3.913 billion below the May peak on our calculation, or 0.11 percent; the 12 month gain is 116.171 billion, 3.50 percent. The series is high and rising slowly; it is not making new highs. The headline is also not the whole reserve position. Total official reserve assets were 3,854.885 billion dollars, 416.56 billion above the foreign exchange figure, the difference being gold, special drawing rights of 56.100 billion, the reserve position at the Fund of 10.999 billion and an other reserve assets line that is negative at minus 0.619 billion. Gold now accounts for 9.08 percent of official reserve assets against 8.08 percent in July on our calculation, a full point added in 1 month. The administration attributed the monthly rise to a falling dollar index and mixed global asset prices, working through exchange rate translation and asset price changes; its commentary does not mention gold. The narrative is in Chinese only so far, while the data table is bilingual and same day.
Why it matters: The 2 releases describe the same event from opposite ends. Egypt’s reserves rose because the gold it already held was marked up; the foreign currency component rose by less than half as much as the reported value of gold and the rest of the non-gold stack fell, which matters for a country running a current account deficit of that size. China’s rose in part for the same reason, but its ounce count has climbed in every month for nearly 2 years, which is a reserve manager changing the composition of the world’s largest stock rather than trading the metal, on our reading. In both cases the arithmetic separates price from policy: Cairo’s share of gold in official assets went from 32.00 to 35.02 percent on a 0.19 percent increase in the reported ounce holding; Beijing’s went from 8.08 to 9.08 percent while buying 650,000 ounces.
Outlook: For Egypt, August consumer prices are due around 10 September on the usual pattern, headline from CAPMAS and core computed by the bank, and the monetary policy committee, which held rates at 19.00 percent on the deposit and 20.00 percent on the lending facility on 20 August without referring to reserves, next meets on 24 September. For China, the next monthly table is due in early October; the 2 figures to watch are the ounce count, which shows intent, and the implied valuation, which shows how much of any headline move is arithmetic. If gold does the work again in September, both headlines will keep rising while only 1 of the 2 banks will have shown a material increase in its reported holding.
Sources: Central Bank of Egypt, State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
