PANews reported on January 7th that, driven by the surge in gold prices over the past year and active purchases by central banks worldwide, gold is poised to surpass US Treasury bonds to become the largest reserve asset held by US governments overseas. According to data released this month by the World Gold Council, the total amount of official US gold reserves held overseas exceeds 900 million troy ounces (data for most countries is as of the end of November, while data for a few countries is as of the end of October). Based on the gold price on November 30th, this is equivalent to $3.82 trillion in gold. In comparison, as of October, the value of long-term and short-term US Treasury bonds held overseas by US governments was close to $3.88 trillion. Assuming that the size of gold reserves held by central banks remains unchanged by the end of the year, based on year-end prices, the value of US official gold reserves held overseas would be $3.93 trillion, already exceeding the size of US Treasury bonds held overseas by official governments.