Wealthy investors are storing their physical gold in Singapore

Wars, rising public debts, and political uncertainties are driving wealthy investors to store their physical gold in Singapore. According to data from precious metals companies, private gold assets in the country have seen a massive increase in recent years.

Investors from the US, Europe, and the Middle East are moving their gold to Singapore to diversify their assets and find secure storage locations. According to estimates by precious metals firm J. Rotbart & Co., private gold holdings in the country have increased nearly 16-fold since 2014, surpassing 800 metric tons last year. While it is stated that the majority of this increase stems from gold coming from Europe, stocks are expected to continue growing this year and next year.

Silver Bullion founder Gregor Gregersen's six-story high-security vault has the capacity to store approximately 10 percent of the annual global gold supply. According to company data, customers' gold assets have tripled since the beginning of 2020, reaching 8.6 tons in September, with approximately 90 percent of this gold belonging to foreign customers. While J. Rotbart & Co. reported that online applications from Western customers have tripled in the past year, Indigo Precious Metals announced that gold demand from wealthy European and American investors has increased by about 25 percent.

While the Singaporean government aims to use the growing interest to establish the country as one of Asia's major gold trading hubs, it is competing with Hong Kong through new infrastructure and storage services. Despite these directing efforts, the gold flows arriving in Singapore remain limited compared to the scale of the global market, with the country's gold imports increasing by 44 percent annually to reach 171 tons as of August.