Austria joins Germany in gold concerns

The situation last year when Germany asked for its 300t of gold back from New York and got told it would take 7 years sent shock waves around the world as it started to add weight to the gold hypothecation allegations.  16 months later and Germany has only received 5t of that 300t.  Now Austria, under political pressure, is asking for an audit of its 225t of gold held in London.  Coincidence or not, but the Swiss just reported their official export figures for 2013 rose 77% to 2,777t worth $132billion.  

Why the link? Because  their imports (a large proportion of which come from London) were an incredible 3,080t. “Only” 900t left ETF’s last year so where did the rest come from?  The political pressure stems from concerns central bank’s gold is being leased and re-leased to bullion banks to short the market to the extent that it is essentially gone.