One of the goals of the World Gold Council is to create freedom for all individuals to own gold, unhindered by punitive tax treatments or regulatory barriers. Our Government Affairs team works toward fair treatment for gold relative to its competition, whether as a monetary asset, investment or luxury item. Our efforts focus on the removal of existing or threatened barriers to purchase or ownership.
Our Government Affairs team works to identify and remove regulatory and fiscal disincentives to gold ownership, in the interest of ensuring the effective operation of the global gold industry. Past successes in the field of gold market liberalization include Turkey and India, where we were instrumental in helping to establish comparatively free regimes for the import, export and trading of gold. The legislation governing gold in both countries had severely restricted supplies, although there was considerable illegal cross-border traffic.
More recently, we have supported the continuing process of gold market deregulation in China. There are now encouraging signs that the Chinese government plans to accelerate the country’s progress toward a free trade in gold. We are also active in other jurisdictions, notably Korea and Vietnam.
A core aspect of our work is engagement in the debate over new global banking regulation in the wake of the 2007-2009 financial crisis. Increasingly, the possible role of gold in the new banking regime governing capital adequacy ratios for commercial banks is coming under consideration within the G20 and beyond.
It was in this context that the World Gold Council submitted evidence to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Our submission demonstrated that gold deserves to be numbered among the high quality liquid assets the committee is recommending commercial banks should hold. We will now pursue the inclusion of gold in the enabling legislation soon to be introduced in national legislatures around the world.