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Russian gold, forex reserves rise to $532bn

Russia's central bank has no immediate plans to diversify its foreign exchange holdings, Chairman Sergei Ignatyev said on last week

MOSCOW (Reuters) - 

Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves rose to $532.0 billion in the week to Dec. 21 from $528.8 billion a week earlier, central bank data showed on Thursday.

Russia's central bank has no immediate plans to diversify its foreign exchange holdings, Chairman Sergei Ignatyev said on last week, after the world's fourth-largest reserve holder recently upped its holdings of Australian and Canadian dollars.

The central bank provided the following figures (in billion dollars):

Latest week             532.0

Previous week           528.8

End-2011                498.6

The reserves include monetary gold, special drawing rights, reserve position at the IMF and foreign exchange.

 (Compiled by Maya Dyakina)