Europe's Gold Imports and Exports Explained Europe has gold mines in Finland, Sweden, Türkiye and Romania among others. Together they account for <2% of world output (≈70 tones of gold/year). Europe is heavily dependent on gold imports, with >90% of the gold for its needs being imported. Switzerland is the world's largest gold refining and transit hub, with at least ≈50% of all of the newly minted gold passing through Swiss refineries. Refining and re-exporting is by far the largest driver of European gold imports. Europe imports ≈3900 tones of gold per year, but only keeps 10% of it.