With the demand for gold and silver increasing heavily since the beginning of the global financial crisis, Slovenians now own more gold than the Slovenian central bank, Banka Slovenije, according to precious metal dealer Elementum.
Elementum quotes data from the World Gold Council which show that Banka Slovenije has about 3.2 tonnes of gold in its reserves. It also quotes Umicore, a leading world refiner of precious metals, which says that Slovenian investors had surpassed that amount in the last 18 months. Last year the majority of investors in gold opted for buying an ounce of gold (31.1 grams), which represented more than 40% of all gold bars sold and about 7% of the total value of gold purchased in 2008. The second most attractive option was buying a 250-gram bar, which represented about 20% of all sold bars, their value accounting for almost 30% of the total sales of gold last year. According to Umicore, investment in precious metals in Europe increased considerably in the second half of 2008, with the highest demend for of 1,000-gram and 500-gram bars.