Last week, Bloomberg reported that Beijing has been building its gold reserves for seven months in a row now, according to official data.

Figures from the People’s Bank of China show that in May, the government of China purchased roughly 16 tons of the precious metal. The news outlet went on to report that the nation had been building its gold stockpile every month going back to November, adding about 144 tons of gold to its reserves.

China’s gold reserves had reached 67.27 million ounces (2,102 tons) by the end of May, according to a report in the Xinhua news agency Wednesday, which cited information from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

The buying spree comes amid a global trend which is seeing central banks stock up on gold, as they begin to shift away from the US dollar as a reserve currency.

Trust in the dollar has been declining globally following the freezing of billions of dollars of Russia’s foreign currency reserves following the imposition of sanctions on Moscow by the Western powers over its military action in Ukraine.

Nations which had political conflicts with the United States, or which just feared the West seeking to impose political influence upon them through the threat of denial of access to Western financial tools for international trade settlement, all began looking for alternative means of settling cross border transactions which did not require the dollar.

Bloomberg noted that central banks purchased a record volume of gold last year as geopolitical uncertainty had begun to rise, and global inflation has proven unusually persistent.

The World Gold Council reported last month that almost a quarter of all central banks plan on increasing their gold reserves over the next 12 months, as they see the role of the US dollar in international trade settlement diminishing.