IMF says it got 'good price' for gold from India

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WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund, which
sold 200 tonnes of gold for about $6.7 billion to the
 Reserve Bank of India, on Wednesday said
it got a "good price," and wants to be similarly
"lucky" in the next phase sale of the precious metal.

The sale price of gold to the RBI is expected to be
under $1,045 per ounce, nearly $200 per ounce
higher than what it would have been anticipated
in mid-September, a senior IMF official told
reporters in a teleconference.

When the IMF Executive Board at its meeting on
 September 18 announced to sell 403.3 tonnes of gold
-- one-eighth of the Fund's total holding --
the prevailing market price of the bullion at that
 time was about $850 an ounce.

"Obviously, it's a good price relative to the original
 assumptions," the IMF official said.

The IMF, in pursuance of the decisions taken at the
 G-20 summit in London, had decided to sell about
403.3 tonnes of gold to shore up its finances so that
 it can lend money to the poor countries at concessional rates.

"Of course, this is only half the sale that we
 have completed, so we don't want to get ahead
 of ourselves. We still have another half to go.
I hope we'll still be lucky," he said.

The official said the good price received for its
gold from India would certainly help the multilateral
lending agency to meet its target of stepping up
 financing to poor countries.