from Silver Doctors:

Chris says there’s an intriguing, developing connection between the Chinese and Barrick, which brings a few questions to mind. Here are the details…

by Chris Powell of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA)

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

The report from today’s South China Morning Post that is appended is interesting for a couple of reasons.

First, it shows that a big gold-mining company owned by the Chinese government continues to invest heavily in new mines — now with another three quarters of a billion dollars — “confident that an upward trend in gold prices will emerge within the next 12 months.”

Second, it highlights another connection between the Chinese government and Barrick Gold, their joint ownership of the second-largest gold mine in South America, the Veladero mine in Argentina.

A particularly intriguing connection between the Chinese government and Barrick was brought to your attention by GATA the other day via a report in the Financial Times. The newspaper noted that the Chinese government has appointed a committee to advise it on relations with the United States and financial and economic reforms and the committee will be co-chaired by the chairman of Barrick Gold, John Thornton, a former Goldman Sachs executive. The committee’s members, which include leading Wall Street bankers, have been invited to Beijing in two days:

http://www.gata.org/node/18485

In federal court in New Orleans in 2003 Barrick admitted that, with its borrowing and leasing of central bank gold, it had become the agent of central banks in regulating the price of the monetary metal:

http://www.gata.org/node/1858

Soon after that admission, which came during a lawsuit charging the company with rigging the gold market, Barrick announced that it would discontinue leasing gold. But the mining company’s growing closeness with the Chinese government implies that China not only considers gold crucial to the world financial system but also wants gold mining intermediaries in the West.

Is Barrick still helping central banks manage the gold market?

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