NEW DELHI: A decision by the Reserve Bank of India to buy 200 tonnes of gold from the IMF for 6.7 billion dollars does not reflect a preference for the metal over the dollar, the finance minister said Tuesday.

The International Monetary Fund kicked off its planned sale of more than 400 tonnes of gold with an announcement Monday that it had sold almost half to India, the world's biggest gold consumer, at near-record prices.

The purchase "doesn't mean we don't prefer the dollar any more or like gold any better," Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters in New Delhi.

Some analysts expect central banks around the world to diversify their holdings and purchase more gold as a shield against a weakening dollar.

The bank said in a statement that the purchase "was done as part of the Reserve Bank's foreign exchange reserves management operations".

The central bank's stock of the precious metal increased to 557 million tonnes from 357 tonnes, a jump of over 55 percent.

The bank said the purchase "was an official sector off-market transaction and was executed over a two-week period during October 19-30, 2009 at market-based prices".

The IMF is selling the gold to raise resources to augment its operations and provide concessional loans to poor countries.

Its current gold stock of 357 tonnes is valued at around 9.6 billion dollars.

A senior IMF official said that the IMF was "lucky" in selling the 200 tonnes to India for roughly 1,045 dollars an ounce, compared with 850 dollars an ounce in April 2008.

India is the world's biggest consumer of gold, importing between 700 and 800 tonnes of the metal every year or 20 percent of global demand.