Banco Azteca: New policy on purchase and sale of silver ‘Libertad’ coins

Monday, 27 October 2008

Hugo Salinas Price

Banco Azteca, with over 800 branches in Mexico, informs us that it will apply a new policy to the purchase and sale of silver “Libertad” ounces at all its branches.

In response to the restriction on supply of silver “Libertad” coins applied last week by the Bank of Mexico, Banco Azteca will proceed as follows:

Banco Azteca will seek to attract the re-sale of silver ounces in order to satisfy, as much as possible, the strong demand forecast for the year-end.

Therefore, Banco Azteca will raise the re-purchase price of silver from the public to where the re-purchased quantities equal the quantities sold to the public, always maintaining the necessary margin to cover costs.

If the price of re-purchased silver is too high, the supply from the selling public will surpass the demand of the silver-purchasing public.

If the price of the re-purchased silver is too low, the supply from the selling public will not be sufficient to cover the demand from the purchasing public.

Banco Azteca will seek to discover the intermediate point, which will balance the supply from the selling public with the demand from the purchasing public.

Banco Azteca had been looking forward to selling 250,000 silver ounces during the Holiday season. With the cutback in supply, current policy would

cause Banco Azteca's inventory to fall to zero in the course of next week.

Sales will be much reduced, from here on, but at least the program adopted will have the virtue of demonstrating what the actual market price of silver ounces is in Mexico , independent of any relation to Comex silver prices.

Banco Azteca was informed by a source at Banco de Mexico, that the restriction of supply was due to a “very large foreign order for silver ounces”.

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The Mexican Civic Association Pro Silver does not accept this excuse, even if it were true, because in any case providing the Mexican people with silver ounces would have to be its Number One priority, and not supplying a foreign buyer while depriving Mexicans of silver ounces.

Furthermore, this Association was told years ago by an officer of Banco de Mexico that the Mexican Mint was capable of minting up to 10 million ounces of silver coins a year.

We believe the restriction of supply in silver ounces is meant to deprive the Mexican population of the possibility of seeking refuge in silver as a protection against financial and economic carnage, and to force Mexicans into depositing their savings in the Banking System, with its risks.