The valuation gain – which does not count as realized profit because no gold was sold – reflects a roughly 15 % rise in the local-currency price of bullion since the start of 2025, the business daily Puls Biznesu reported on Wednesday.
NBP has aggressively expanded its gold holdings in recent years, doubling them to 448 tonnes since 2019. Gold now represents about 15 % of the bank’s total assets, compared with 9 % five years ago, leaving Poland with one of the highest gold shares among central banks in Central and Eastern Europe.
By comparison, the Czech National Bank holds around 3 % of its assets in gold, Hungary about 8 % and Romania roughly 10 %, Puls Biznesu noted.
Analysts say the build-up reflects a strategic shift as global financial conditions become less predictable and the United States signals that foreign holders of Treasuries may bear a larger share of Washington’s fiscal burden. In such an environment, “holding gold may make more sense than usual,” the newspaper quoted economists as saying.
NBP’s 2024 loss – largely a result of high domestic interest rates and a stronger zloty, which reduce the value of its foreign-currency assets – is not unusual for a central bank and poses no threat to monetary stability, the report added. Losses only become critical if they limit a bank’s ability to conduct policy, which is “a distant prospect” in Poland’s case, Puls Biznesu wrote.
($1 = PLN3.76)
(jh)
Source: PAP, Puls Biznesu