Foreign reserve managers are increasingly interested in market segments and currencies that until recently would not have been considered. The value of central banks’ foreign assets other than gold has now reached $ trillion, roughly 15% of world GDP. I don’t need to remind you of the special role that gold plays in central banks’ official reserves.
Not only does it have the valuable characteristic of allowing diversification, in  9  Eugenio Gaiotti and Alessandro Secchi, “Monetary Policy and Fiscal Dominance in Italy from the 1970s to the adoption of the euro,” Banca d’Italia Occasional Papers, No. 141, November 2012. 10  David. Archer and Paul Moser-Boehm, “Central bank finances,” BIS Papers, No. 71, April 2013.