VIENNA(BullionStreet): Austria announced earning a whopping 300,000,000 euros through leasing it's 280 tons of gold in the last ten years.

Replying to questions in country's parliament, Austrian central bank, National bank (OeNB) governor Wolfgang Duchatczek said 224. 4 tonnes (around 80%) of Austrian gold reserves were in the United Kingdom, around 6.9 tonnes (around 3%) are in Switzerland and around 48.7 tonnes (around 17%) are in Austria itself.

The OeNB said that the reason to store gold abroad was that because in a time of crisis it could be speedily traded. Since 2007 Austria's National bank had had a constant reserve of around 280 tons of gold.

Through leasing of its gold the Austrian National Bank has in the last 10 years earned around 300,000,000 euros.

The bank's governor revealed the statistics after a question by social Democrat MP Matznetter who wanted to know why Great Britain was regarded as the best place to store Austrian gold .

Duchatczek said: "The bank has always made it clear that our gold reserves are stored at the main gold trading centres." Currently that would be London and Switzerland - specifically Basel, he said.

The gold that the bank has in Austria itself is stored at the Austrian Mint in Vienna. Austria restricts the free purchase of gold by individuals .

As per the new Austrian policies, individuals who wish to purchase gold will be restricted to purchase only 15000 Euros worth of gold at a time making gold an officially “restricted” commodity.

Earlier, one had to just call the local Austrian bank about 2-4 days in advance and state the amount of gold one wishes to purchase. But that has now been scrapped.