Greece's central bank said on Saturday it held 149.1 tonnes of gold reserves at the end of December worth 5.26 billion euros ($5.55 billion), with about half kept in its vaults and the rest stored abroad. Responding to a Greek newspaper report that half of its gold reserves had been handed over to the European Central Bank, the Bank of Greece said a small amount was transferred to the ECB when Greece joined the euro zone in 2001.
The Bank of Greece then became part of the Eurosystem of central banks.
The Bank of Greece said it sold 20 tonnes of gold in 2003 as part of portfolio management moves, converting some of the gold coins it had amassed into tradable bars of bullion.