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Russian gold is pouring into Hong Kong at a record pace, highlighting how Western sanctions have rerouted bullion bound for London toward China and other Asian markets.

Hong Kong imported 112.7 tonnes of Russian-origin gold in the first seven months of 2026, according to precious metals investment firm BullionVault’s analysis of data from the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department.

Imports have already surpassed the record 92.1 tonnes imported during all of 2025, and compares with just 3.3 tonnes in 2021, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The surge underscores how Russia’s gold trade has been rerouted since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 shut its producers out of major Western markets, analysts told CNBC.

Russian bullion accounted for almost 15% of Hong Kong’s non-monetary gold imports in the first seven months of this year, up from just 0.6% in 2021.

“Hong Kong has emerged as an important hub for Russia-China trade since the full-scale invasion,” said Vita Spivak, senior consultant at Gatehouse Advisory Partners. “Most gold goes to Mainland China as it hasn’t placed sanctions on Russian gold,” she told CNBC.

“For bullion specifically, Hong Kong also offers advantages beyond sanctions circumvention. It provides direct access to the world’s largest gold-consuming market,” Spivak highlighted.

The London Bullion Market Association suspended all six Russian gold and silver refiners from its Good Delivery lists in March 2022. The U.S., U.K. and other Western countries subsequently imposed restrictions on Russian gold, effectively closing off markets that had previously been major destinations for the country’s bullion.

Before the war, Russia’s gold industry had become heavily dependent on London. Russian gold exports to the U.K. between 2019 and 2021 were equivalent to around two-thirds of the country’s mine production, according to data from BullionVault.

“The fact that Hong Kong’s official data clearly shows a steep rise in imports of Russian gold reflects the kind of support and bilateral trade for which Putin has repeatedly thanked Xi,” said Adrian Ash, director of research at BullionVault.

“Russian exports of gold to the UK and other Western-sanction nations of course collapsed,” Ash added.

Behind the rush

Hong Kong is a natural alternative. The city has long served as a gateway for bullion into mainland China, the world’s largest gold consumer, and it is rapidly expanding its storage, clearing and trading infrastructure.

“Hong Kong has always been an important entre-pot for gold going into China,” said Rhona O’Connell, head of market analysis for EMEA and Asia at StoneX. While Shanghai has taken market share in recent years, Hong Kong is now in “a race with Singapore for hub supremacy and is about six months ahead in terms of infrastructure,” she said.

Historically, Hong Kong was the main gateway for China’s gold imports, but Beijing has since opened other import hubs including Shenzhen and Beijing, reducing the city’s share, according to S&P Global.

The Russian flows are arriving just as China itself is in the midst of a broader gold buying spree.

China has designated gold a “strategic mineral” and has promoted physical bullion as a store of value for households, while the People’s Bank of China has continued adding to its reserves.

S&P Global data showed that China’s official gold holdings rose by more than 40 tonnes in the first half of 2026, more than double the amount purchased a year earlier.

“We do know that whether it’s the PBOC or if it’s the Chinese consumers, they’ve all been buying quite a bit of gold,” Charles Chang, Greater China country lead for corporates at S&P Global Ratings, told CNBC in an interview.

“In times of high uncertainty, consumers tend to want to protect their savings, and they find gold as one vehicle for that,” he said.

The World Bank has increased its growth projection for the East Asia and Pacific region, citing AI‑related exports as a driver, while warning that the region’s dependence on the AI boom makes it susceptible to a possible global tech‑spending reversal. The region comprises 23 economies, including China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

The EAP economy is expected to expand 4.5% this year, 0.3 percentage point more than the bank projected in April, according to its latest report released Tuesday. Growth is forecast to ease to 4.4% in 2027 and 4.3% in 2028.

Vietnam received the biggest forecast upgrade among major economies of the region, up 1.1 percentage point to 7.4%. The region’s strength, however, is highly dependent on AI‑related manufacturing and exports.

Trade growth, excluding AI‑related goods, has been “weak or negative,” the bank said. Those products accounted for more than half of the export growth in most of the region’s economies and more than 70% in Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam shipped $1.4 trillion of AI‑related goods in the 12 months through April, according to the report. Official data showed that South Korea’s exports grew 83.5% in September to a record $120.9 billion, with chips making up half of those shipments.

Reflecting the dominance of semiconductors in the country’s market, the World Bank highlighted that just two chipmakers — Samsung and SK Hynix — accounted for 43% of the benchmark Kospi index’s value as of end‑April. The AI risk is on the spending side.

AI‑related capital expenditure has reached about 6% of U.S. GDP, similar to the 2000 peak in information‑technology investment, and the current cycle “has risen faster than either previous cycle and is still gaining speed,” the bank said.

The Bank for International Settlements in its annual economic report in June had warned that the boom’s scale and pace bears resemblance to the dot‑com frenzy of the 1990s and other “manias.” The financing driving the boom is also less transparent.

Of the $2.9 trillion in AI capex planned for 2025‑2028, $800 billion is expected to come from private credit, the bank said, where AI‑related lending rose to 34% of activity in 2025 from an 18% average over the prior five years. Private credit portfolios have experienced markdowns, outflows and defaults this year.

Private credit markets are “less visible, and have not been tested by a severe downturn,” the bank said. That said, the AI boom supported by abundant liquidity could slow due to the latest tightening of financial conditions as major central banks raise rates for the first time since 2023, according to the report.

The U.S. Federal Reserve raised rates last month, its first increase in more than three years, and signaled one more to hike this year.

A correction may not necessarily mean a bust for the AI supercycle, but that investment “had run ahead of realized demand,” the organization said. A slowdown by 1 percentage point in U.S. growth cuts other emerging‑market growth by an estimated 0.6 percentage point, with the hit to investment about twice as large, the bank said.

“A slowdown concentrated in AI would be material for East Asia because of the region’s prominence in the AI supply chain.” Bank funding is the broadest exposure. Foreign‑currency‑denominated liabilities of banks appeared significant in some countries — 29.2% of GDP in Malaysia, 20.7% in the Philippines.

Taiwan’s statistics bureau recently raised its 2026 growth forecast to 11% from 9.6% on AI demand, while warning in June that “if the high‑tech sector faces headwinds, the negative impact on the local economy could be bigger than expected.”