Over the past decade India's central bank raised both its gold reserves (up 58% to 880.51 tonnes) and its US Treasury holdings (up 59% to $186.4 billion), a different path from China, which cut Treasuries by nearly half while buying gold.
At a glance
- India's US Treasury holdings rose 59% over the decade to June 2026, from $117.2 billion to $186.4 billion, while its gold reserves rose 58%, from 557.77 tonnes to 880.51 tonnes -- both assets built up at once.
- China took the opposite path: US Treasury holdings fell roughly 47% over the same decade, from about $1.19 trillion to around $633.4 billion, while gold reserves rose 27%, from 1,842.56 tonnes to 2,346.43 tonnes.
- India's Treasury holdings fell from about $227.4 billion in June 2025 to $186.4 billion in June 2026 even as gold stayed roughly flat -- a recent-year pause in the decade-long pattern of building up both assets together.
- Not every major reserve holder is following China's script either: Japan trimmed Treasuries only slightly (down about 2.65%) while adding a modest 10.55% to gold reserves (to 845.97 tonnes), and the UK grew Treasuries 348% (to $939.9 billion) with gold reserves unchanged at 310.29 tonnes.
What happened
India's central bank spent the past decade adding to both sides of its reserve portfolio at once, a path that sets it apart from China's. Between June 2016 and June 2026, the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) holdings of US Treasury securities rose 59%, from $117.2 billion to $186.4 billion, while its gold reserves climbed 58%, from 557.77 tonnes to 880.51 tonnes, according to figures on central bank reserve composition reported this week. China moved in the opposite direction over the same ten years: its US Treasury holdings fell by roughly 47%, from about $1.19 trillion to around $633.4 billion, even as its gold reserves grew 27%, from 1,842.56 tonnes to 2,346.43 tonnes. The contrast has sharpened in just the past year. India's Treasury holdings actually slipped from about $227.4 billion in June 2025 to $186.4 billion in June 2026, even as its gold holdings stayed roughly flat -- the first sign in this data that India's simultaneous build-up of both assets may be leveling off rather than continuing indefinitely.
The details
Two of Asia's largest reserve managers spent the last decade answering the same question -- how much of the portfolio should sit in US government debt versus gold -- in opposite ways. China trimmed. India added to both. The scale of China's shift is the more dramatic of the two: its US Treasury holdings fell from roughly $1.19 trillion to about $633.4 billion between June 2016 and June 2026, a drop of nearly half, while its gold reserves rose 27% to 2,346.43 tonnes. That kind of rotation -- selling one reserve asset to fund purchases of another -- only works cleanly when the size of the total reserve pool isn't growing much, and China's headline foreign-exchange reserves have hovered in a comparatively narrow band for years. Cutting Treasuries wasn't just a preference there; it freed up room for the gold purchases sitting alongside it.
India didn't face the same constraint, and its numbers show it. The RBI's Treasury holdings rose 59% over the same decade, from $117.2 billion to $186.4 billion, while its gold reserves rose 58%, from 557.77 tonnes to 880.51 tonnes -- both climbing at almost identical rates. That's only possible if the total reserve pie is expanding alongside both assets rather than one being funded by shrinking the other, and India's overall foreign-exchange reserves have indeed grown substantially over the past decade on the back of steady capital inflows and a current account that isn't chronically starved of dollars the way some emerging markets are. Add to a growing pool, and there's no need to choose between safety in gold and yield in Treasuries -- you can have more of both.
The more recent numbers complicate the tidy story a little. India's Treasury holdings didn't just plateau -- they fell, from about $227.4 billion in June 2025 to $186.4 billion a year later, a drop of roughly 18% in twelve months, while gold holdings barely moved. A single year's dip in Treasury holdings can reflect any number of ordinary reserve-management reasons -- valuation swings as US bond yields moved, tactical portfolio rebalancing, or dollar liquidity drawn down to support the rupee during a period of currency pressure -- and one year of data isn't enough to call it a reversal of the decade-long pattern. But it is enough to say the simultaneous build-up wasn't a straight line, and the assumption that India will keep adding to both assets at the same pace going forward isn't something the data alone can support.
Other large reserve holders show the same period doesn't have one universal script. Japan barely touched its Treasury position (down about 2.65%) while adding a modest 10.55% to gold, a much smaller-scale echo of China's approach. The UK went the other way entirely, growing Treasuries 348% to $939.9 billion while its 310.29-tonne gold position didn't move at all -- proof that the multi-year global narrative around central banks diversifying into gold, real as it is in aggregate, isn't something every large reserve manager is actually doing. For an Indian reader watching the daily gold rate, the RBI's own reserve mix matters less for any single day's price than for what it signals about how the central bank views its own currency's dollar-liquidity needs against its appetite for a non-yielding hedge -- and on that count, the last year's numbers suggest the RBI itself hasn't fully made up its mind either.
Why it matters
Central bank reserve composition rarely moves markets day to day, but it says something durable about how the world's two most populous economies think about dollar exposure. China's decade-long rotation out of Treasuries and into gold is the more familiar story; India quietly building up both at once, only to pull back on Treasuries in the most recent year, is the less-told one -- and it's a reminder that the world's shift toward gold isn't a single uniform trend so much as a set of different countries solving different problems with the same asset.
Our read
Outlook: bullish. India's decade-long addition of 58% more gold reserves, alongside China's continued gold buying even while cutting Treasuries by nearly half, reinforces the broader pattern of sustained official-sector demand across two of the world's largest reserve managers. Confidence is held to the mid-50s rather than higher because the most recent year's data shows India's gold holdings roughly flat and its Treasury holdings falling, suggesting the pace of this specific dual build-up may be slowing rather than accelerating.
What to watch
- Whether India's US Treasury holdings continue falling in the RBI's next reporting period or stabilize near the June 2026 level
- Whether India's gold reserves resume climbing after a roughly flat recent year, or continue to plateau alongside the Treasury pullback
- China's future monthly gold-purchase reports, for whether its Treasury-to-gold rotation continues at a similar pace
- US Treasury Department TIC (Treasury International Capital) data releases, the standard monthly source for tracking major foreign holders' Treasury positions
For information only, not investment advice.
Gold price in India
metalscost.com India reference price as of 2026-10-12.
Detailed analysis
Timeline
- 2016-06-30: Decade-comparison baseline: India holds $117.2 billion in US Treasuries and 557.77 tonnes of gold; China holds roughly $1.19 trillion in Treasuries.
- 2022-02-28: Western governments freeze roughly $300 billion of Russia's foreign-currency reserves, a reference point cited across the broader central-bank gold-diversification trend of the years that follow.
- 2025-06-30: India's US Treasury holdings stand at roughly $227.4 billion, before falling over the following year.
- 2026-06-30: Decade-comparison endpoint: India holds $186.4 billion in Treasuries (+59% over the decade) and 880.51 tonnes of gold (+58%); China holds roughly $633.4 billion in Treasuries (-47%) and 2,346.43 tonnes of gold (+27%).
Central Banks
The Reserve Bank of India grew both its US Treasury holdings (up 59% to $186.4 billion) and its gold reserves (up 58% to 880.51 tonnes) between June 2016 and June 2026, a simultaneous build-up made possible by a growing overall reserve pool. The People's Bank of China took the opposite approach over the same decade, cutting Treasury holdings by roughly 47% to about $633.4 billion while still raising gold reserves 27% to 2,346.43 tonnes -- a genuine trade-off within a comparatively flat total reserve pool rather than a simultaneous build-up of both.
Currency Impact
India's continued net addition to US Treasuries over the decade runs somewhat counter to the aggregate global trend of Treasuries' shrinking share of world reserves -- it is one of the reasons that global shift has been gradual rather than uniform across every major holder. The most recent year's data, where India's Treasury holdings fell from about $227.4 billion to $186.4 billion, is a smaller-scale version of the same dollar-exposure recalculation China made on a much larger scale a decade earlier.
What could lift prices
- India's gold reserves rose 58% over the decade even while it kept adding to Treasuries, showing gold accumulation among large reserve managers isn't dependent on cutting other assets first.
- China's 27% gold-reserve increase over the decade came alongside a much steeper Treasury cut, underscoring that the world's largest rotation out of dollar assets has run in parallel with sustained gold buying, not instead of it.
What could weigh on prices
- India's gold reserves stayed roughly flat in the most recent year even as its Treasury holdings fell nearly 18%, suggesting the decade-long simultaneous build-up of both assets may be pausing rather than continuing at the same pace.
- Not every large reserve holder is diversifying into gold at all -- the UK grew its Treasury position 348% over the decade with zero change in its gold holdings, a reminder that the aggregate global trend toward gold isn't universal.
Country impact
| Country | Impact | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| India | High | The Reserve Bank of India grew both its gold and US Treasury holdings over the decade, a distinct pattern from most major reserve managers, though the most recent year shows the Treasury side pulling back. |
| China | High | China's decade-long rotation out of US Treasuries and into gold is the more familiar half of this story and the larger of the two in absolute scale. |
| United States | Medium | As the issuer of the Treasury securities both countries are adjusting their exposure to, the US has a direct stake in whether major holders like China keep trimming their positions. |
| United Kingdom | Low | The UK's reserve mix shows the opposite of a gold-diversification story, growing its dollar-asset exposure sharply while leaving its gold position untouched. |
| Japan | Low | Japan made only a small move in either direction, illustrating that the China-style rotation into gold has happened at very different scales across major economies. |
Industry impact
| Industry | Effect | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Central Banking | Positive | The decade-long data shows reserve managers treating gold and US Treasuries as complementary tools rather than a single either-or choice, a more nuanced picture than a uniform shift away from the dollar. |
Who gains, who loses
- Gold miners and bullion suppliers: Two of the world's most populous economies both added meaningfully to gold reserves over the decade, reinforcing official-sector demand even where their approaches to Treasuries diverged sharply.
- The US Treasury market's reliance on China as a buyer: China's roughly 47% cut to its US Treasury holdings over the decade represents a large, sustained reduction in demand from what was historically one of the largest foreign holders of US government debt.
Other ways this could play out
- If India's overall reserve pool keeps growing the way it has for most of the past decade, its recent-year Treasury pullback could prove temporary, with both gold and Treasury holdings resuming a parallel climb.
- If the past year's pattern continues instead, India's reserve strategy could start to look more like a milder version of China's rotation -- trimming Treasury exposure while still adding to gold -- rather than the simultaneous build-up of both that defined most of the decade.
Price risks
- India's roughly flat gold holdings in the most recent year, alongside its Treasury pullback, could indicate reduced official-sector buying momentum from one of the decade's more consistent dual-asset accumulators if the pattern persists.
- A resumption of India's decade-long pace of adding to both assets, rather than the recent year's pause, would reinforce rather than change the broader structural demand case for gold among large reserve managers.
Historical comparison
- India, 2016-2026: India's gold reserves rose 58% (557.77 to 880.51 tonnes) and its US Treasury holdings rose 59% ($117.2 billion to $186.4 billion) over the decade -- both assets built up together rather than traded off.
- China, 2016-2026: China's US Treasury holdings fell roughly 47% (about $1.19 trillion to about $633.4 billion) while its gold reserves rose 27% (1,842.56 to 2,346.43 tonnes) over the same decade -- a genuine rotation from one asset into the other.
Technical view
Price is mixed relative to its 20-period and 50-period moving averages, showing no clear trend alignment.
Computed from metalscost.com's own stored price history.
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