According to Kitco, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) bought an additional 30,000 ounces of gold last month, bringing total gold reserves to 74.2 million ounces by the end of February, with a value of about 387.6 billion USD, according to data from the State Foreign Exchange Administration of China (SAFE).
Since November 2024, the PBOC has increased its gold reserves by a total of 1.4 million ounces.
Data also shows that China's foreign exchange reserves reached 3,400 billion USD at the end of February, an increase of 8.7 billion USD compared to the end of January, marking the seventh consecutive month of foreign exchange reserves increasing. SAFE said that the increase mainly came from the exchange rate conversion effect and the price increase of assets, in the context of the USD index strengthening.
Recently, the PBOC has continuously become the focus of attention in the gold market. At the end of December, reports appeared that China bought a record amount of gold worth 961 million USD from Russia in November 2025 - considered the largest gold deal in the history of bilateral trade between the two countries.
This is the second consecutive month that Russia's gold exports to China have exceeded 900 million USD, according to Chinese customs data. Previously, in October, Russia's gold export value to China was estimated at 930 million USD.
Gold buying speed also increased sharply at the end of the year, when October and November alone accounted for almost all bilateral gold transactions in 2025. From January to November, China imported 1.9 billion USD of gold from Russia, nearly 9 times higher than the same period last year, when the purchase volume did not exceed 223 million USD.
The sharp increase in gold buying activity takes place in the context of China stepping up its policy of increasing gold reserves to reduce dependence on the USD. And although official figures are already very large, many experts believe that the actual figure may be much higher.
In October, the French bank Société Générale estimated that, based on the difference between gold imports, domestic exploitation output and official reserve figures, the actual amount of gold China buys may be 10 times higher than the PBOC's announced figures - about 250 tons instead of 25 tons.
This analysis is based on gold export data from the UK, which is considered one of the most reliable indicators of physical gold flows. According to this index, China may have added more than 1,080 tons of gold to reserves since mid-2022.
