Impasse on gold issue

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33712, 9 December 1974, Page 15

Impasse on gold issue

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter —Copyright) WASHINGTON.

Discussions among the 126 members of the International Monetary Fund on how governments should use their gold holdings in future have become deadlocked by the failure of the United States and France to reach a compromise on the issue, according to monetary sources in Washington.

The impasse was reached by the 20 members of the executive board in their second round of talks on the future role of gold in the international monetary system.

Both diplomatic and monetary sources see no prospect of an early settlement of the issue unless the United States and France soften their positions. They expect the problem to be raised in Martinique at the initiative of President Giscard d’Estaing of France in the three-day talks he will have with President Ford beginning on December 14.The United States said yesterday that she would sell by auction two million ounces of the Treasury Department’s gold in a move aimed at controlling speculation. The announcement came 28 days before it becomes legal for Americans to own gold for the first time for 30 years. The Secretary of the Treasury (Mr William Simon) said that formal invitations to the auction, of 400-ounce bars, would be issued in about 10 days. The amount t<| be auctioned is a relatively small part of the country’s gold stockpile, which amounts to about 276 million ounces. At today’s prices, the two million ounces would net the Treasury about SUS36Om.