Central Banker With Too Much Gold Wants Treasuries Instead

With trade wars and sluggish growth making goldbugs of central bankers around the world, one country wants to buck the trend.

The central Asian nation of Uzbekistan is unwinding decades of isolation, opening its economy and modernizing its markets after the death in 2016 of Islam Karimov, the country’s ruler for the previous quarter-century. Currency controls have been rolled back, the government debuted Eurobonds in February, and now central bank Governor Mamarizo Nurmuratov is looking to buy U.S. and Chinese sovereign debt as he diversifies the nation’s $26 billion of international reserves away from the yellow metal.