MUMBAI (Commodity Online): With India and China emerging as the leading economies to beat recession in the world, Indian central bank’s decision to buy 200 tonnes of International Monetary Fund’s gold at $6.7 billion has added to the country’s power to impact the global market.

And, if Reserve Bank of India bagged the 200 tonnes now speculation is rife over which bank will pick up the remaining 200 tonnes the IMF wants to sell in the market.

The first contender now is China, which has been stockpiling gold for quite sometime now. China is slowly shifting its focus from dollar to gold and it now wants more gold reserves in place of its foreign reserves in dollars.

The IMF targets to sell about 403.3 metric tonnes of gold to shore up its finances so that it can lend money to the poorest countries at concessional rates.

RBI’s transaction is an important step toward achieving the objectives of the IMF’s limited gold sales programme, which are to help put the Fund’s finances on a sound long-term footing and enable us to step up much-needed concessional lending to the poorest countries.

The transaction, which is still in the process of being settled, was carried out on a daily basis over a period of two weeks October 19-30. Each daily sale was conducted at a price set on the basis of market prices prevailing that day.

As per IMF rule, all gold sales must be conducted at prices based on market prices, including direct sales to official holders as in the case of this transaction.

The IMF, which currently holds 3,217 tonnes of gold, is the third-largest official holder of the precious metal after the US and Germany.

The IMF has made gold sales a key element of its new income model aimed at lowering its dependence on lending revenue to cover expenses.