Gold Is Now 23 Percent of Qatar Reserves, Up From 6 Percent in 2021
Qatar’s international reserves and foreign currency liquidity reached 262,240.4 million riyals at the end of August, the highest value in the table the Qatar Central Bank published on Monday. At its own 3.64 peg that is about 72.04 billion dollars on our calculation.
The month itself barely moved: the total rose 65.3 million riyals, or 0.025 percent on our calculation. The composition is the story, and it has been changing for four years and eight months.
Gold has gone from a seventeenth of reserves to nearly a quarter
| End of period, million riyals | December 2021 | August 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Gold | 12,047.2 | 60,087.5 |
| Balances with foreign banks | 26,135.6 | 62,763.8 |
| Foreign securities | 109,401.4 | 92,433.8 |
| Total | 209,932.8 | 262,240.4 |
From the reserves and foreign currency liquidity table published 7 September 2026, which marks the August row as primary data. Rows ranked by the size of the change between the two dates, largest first. Foreign securities is the bank’s own label for that line.
Gold is up 398.8 percent across that span on our calculation, deposits with foreign banks up 140.1 percent, and foreign securities down 15.5 percent, against a total that rose 24.9 percent. Gold’s share has gone from 5.74 percent to 22.91 percent and the securities share from 52.11 percent to 35.25 percent, both on our calculation. A reserve stock that was more than half securities is now just over a third securities.
There is a limit to what that says, and it is worth stating. The table gives gold only in riyals, never in ounces, so the 398.8 percent cannot be separated into purchases and price. Over a period in which the gold price rose steeply, some of it is certainly revaluation. How much is not recoverable from what is published.
August continued the direction. Gold rose 7.70 percent on the month to about 16.51 billion dollars, deposits fell 5.60 percent to about 17.24 billion from the highest reading in the table, and foreign securities fell again to about 25.39 billion, a fifth consecutive monthly decline on our count of the table. Holdings of special drawing rights and the position at the International Monetary Fund were 5,230.4 million riyals.
A reclassification sits in the middle of the series
Between June and July, official reserves rose 17,876.7 million riyals while other liquid assets in foreign currency fell 17,816.3 million. The two moves net to 60.4 million, which is the whole of the change in the total that month. The near perfect offset strongly indicates a reclassification between the two lines rather than an increase in the combined stock, though no explanation is published.
Anyone comparing official reserve levels across that boundary would read an 8.8 percent increase on our calculation, at a point where the combined total barely changed. The August figures are 220,515.5 million riyals of official reserves, about 60.58 billion dollars, and 41,724.9 million of other liquid assets, about 11.46 billion. No driver is given for any component.
Why it matters: A central bank running a currency peg holds reserves to defend it, and the mix decides what it is defending with. The composition has moved much further than the headline: the total is about a quarter larger than at the end of 2021, while gold and bank balances now carry substantially more weight and foreign securities substantially less. The one figure that would let an outsider judge how much of that is deliberate and how much is price, the ounce count, is the one figure not disclosed.
Outlook: The September table is due in early October. Two lines carry the story: whether the securities run extends to a sixth month, and whether the deposit balance rebuilds after August’s fall. A headline version of these figures usually reaches the news page separately, and the July release came two days after the July table.
Sources: Qatar Central Bank.
