ORO - EL CORAZON DE PORTUGAL

tradicionalmente se decia que la economia familiar portuguesa estaba al cuello de la mujer lusitana; se cuentan por Kg en muchos casos, las cantidades de oro por matriárca; desde pequeñas reciben de familiares y amigos oro que van juntando en collares y alajas a lo largo de los siglos. los "ourives" lo funden y le dan nueva formas filigranas artísticas únicas, en el norte de portugal y el tipico corazon de Viana. desde la apertura de fronteras con españa y con el aumento de robos junto a ellas, los bancos ofrecen cajas individuales dentro de sus cofres para que el oro no declarado este protejido. se calcula que Portugal sigue siendo la mayor reserva de Oro en Europa. con millares de toneladas en Oro particular. se calcula que todo el oro disponible del mundo no se acerca a las 40.000 toneladas.

Decada de valorizacion constante

El oro es presidido este año por
una década de subida anual consecutiva,
la racha más larga desde al menos 1920, y cotizaba a un récord de US $ 1,265.30
hace un mes en Londres. Desde entonces, se disminuyó 5,8
por ciento a $ 1,192.50.

Los bancos centrales y los
gobiernos añadido 425,4 toneladas de reservas del año pasado para tener un
total de 30,116.9 toneladas, lo máximo desde 1964 y el primer aumento desde
1988, los datos del Consejo Mundial del Oro espectáculo. El oro representa el 82 por
ciento de las reservas nacionales de Portugal, el porcentaje más alto entre las
20 mayores tenedores de los metales preciosos, de acuerdo con el consejo de
oro.
"La sorpresa a nadie fuera
del mercado del oro es que Portugal atrapado por su reserva cuando otros países
de la zona euro se realizan ventas", dijo Jessica Cruz, director ejecutivo
de la empresa londinense productos la compañía de investigación Grupo de VM,
que ha seguido las ventas de oro por los bancos centrales durante
17 años. "Portugal pasa a estar en
el lugar correcto en el momento oportuno tener grandes cantidades de oro."

El Banco de Portugal ha dijo que
vendió los lotes del metal todos los años desde 2003 hasta 2006 en virtud de un
acuerdo entre los bancos centrales europeos que las tapas de oro de ventas.

"Las reservas de Portugal
retroceden un largo camino", dijo Antonio Sousa, presidente de la
Asociación de Bancos portugués y un ex gobernador del Banco de Portugal. "Más allá del valor
simbólico a menudo se atribuye al oro, es un bien como cualquier otro. Es
una cuestión de gestión de carteras ".

Gold Makes Dead Portuguese Dictator Top Investor Without Gains
By Boomberg -
Jul 21, 2010



Portugal
owns more of the precious metal relative to the size of its economy
than any euro country, accumulated mostly during Salazar’s 36 years in
power using savings and money from exports including tungsten and
canned fish. Source: Sipa via AP Images



Play Video

July 12 (Bloomberg) -- Gijsbert Groenewegen, a partner at Gold Arrow
Capital Management, talks about the outlook for gold and the U.S.
dollar. Groenewegen speaks with Matt Miller and Carol Massar on
Bloomberg Television's "Street Smart." (This is an excerpt of the full
interview. Source: Bloomberg)

Attachment: Chart of gold price; and euro, Portugal stock index, bond


A pedestrian walks past Portugal's finance department in Lisbon. Photographer: Mario Proenca/Bloomberg

Former dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar might have been remembered as Portugal’s best investor
had central bank rules allowed the country to benefit from his
shrewdest trade: Europe’s biggest gold pile.
Portugal owns more of the precious metal relative to the
size of its economy than any euro country, accumulated mostly
during Salazar’s 36 years in power using savings and money from
exports including tungsten and canned fish. Gold’s 26 percent
advance in the past year leaves Portugal holding an increasingly
valuable asset, though one the indebted government can’t touch
because the law prevents proceeds from going to state coffers.
“With the increase in the price of gold, you have some
nice booked gains, but you can’t cash them in,” said David Schnautz, a strategist at Commerzbank AG in London. “It’s a
buffer for an extreme-case scenario.”

Portugal’s budget deficit is three times the limit for euro
members and its debt will equal 84 percent of gross domestic
product this year. Standard & Poor’s gives Portugal the second-
lowest credit rating after Greece among the 16 euro countries.
The 382.5 tons of gold that Portugal holds are valued at
about $14.7 billion, or 6.8 percent of GDP after converting into
euros, Bloomberg calculations and International Monetary Fund
data show. Italy’s gold equals 4.8 percent of its economy,
followed by Germany with 4.2 percent. Greece’s gold reserves
equal 1.4 percent of GDP.

Gold Ignored

Moody’s Investors Service, which cut Portugal’s rating by
two notches on July 13, only looks at gold reserves in cases
where governments need to generate “hard” currencies such as
dollars and euros. That doesn’t apply to Portugal, said Anthony Thomas, a sovereign debt analyst at Moody’s.
Portugal’s gold is managed by the Bank of Portugal, whose
law says proceeds from sales must be placed in a reserve account
and can’t be transferred to the state treasury. The bank pays a
dividend each year to the government from earnings on interest
and securities. The dividend paid for 2009 was 203 million euros
($260 million), the central bank said in a July 2 e-mail.
A Bank of Portugal official in Lisbon declined to comment
on the management of the gold reserves, as did a Finance
Ministry spokesman in the Portuguese capital.
Salazar made his name in Portuguese politics as a budget
disciplinarian at the Finance Ministry before serving as prime
minister from 1932, when he developed the authoritarian “Estado
Novo” or “New State,” until 1968. He died two years later at
the age of 81.

Wolfram Sales

“In exchange for exports, the Portuguese state sought to
obtain scarce goods and services during World War II, and
secondly convertible currencies or gold,” said Joao Paulo
Avelas Nunes, a professor at Universidade de Coimbra in northern
Portugal and author of a book on the Estado Novo and its
relationship with the wolfram industry.
Wolfram, the mineral from which tungsten is obtained,
soared in value when the war started in 1939 as its resistance
to heat and impact made it ideal for weapons production.
Portugal is Europe’s third-largest producer of tungsten after
Russia and Austria, according to U.S. Geological Survey data.
Portugal had 866 tons of gold in 1974, when the
dictatorship of Salazar and his successor Marcelo Caetano ended,
according to the Bank of Portugal. In 1950, Portugal’s gold
reserves totaled 171 tons, World Gold Council figures show.
When the regime was overthrown, along with the military
junta in Greece, Portugal was one of the poorest countries in
western Europe and was fighting a war in its African colonies.

Decade Advance

Gold is headed this year for a 10th consecutive annual
advance, the longest winning streak since at least 1920, and
traded at a record $1,265.30 a month ago in London. Since then,
it’s declined 5.8 percent to $1,192.50.
Central banks and governments added 425.4 tons to reserves
last year to take the total to 30,116.9 tons, the most since
1964 and the first increase since 1988, data from the World Gold
Council show. Gold represents 82 percent of Portugal’s national
reserves, the highest percentage among the 20 biggest holders of
the precious metal, according to the gold council.
“The surprise to anybody outside of the gold market is
that Portugal stuck by their reserves when other euro-zone
countries were actively selling,” said Jessica Cross, chief
executive officer of London-based commodities research company
VM Group, which has tracked gold sales by central banks for 17
years. “Portugal happens to be in the right place at the right
time having large amounts of gold.”
The Bank of Portugal has said it sold batches of the metal
every year from 2003 to 2006 under an agreement between European
central banks that caps gold sales.
“Portugal’s reserves go back a long way,” said Antonio de Sousa, president of the Association of Portuguese Banks and a
former governor at the Bank of Portugal. “Beyond the symbolic
value often attributed to gold, it’s an asset like any other.
It’s a question of portfolio management.”