Russian Forex and Gold reserves hit multi-month highs

Official data shows the reserves rose by $7.2bn in the week to October 7th.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - 

Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves hit their highest level

since early January in the week to Oct. 9, reflecting central bank purchases of foreign currency to mollify the rouble's recent rapid appreciation.
Official data on Thursday showed the reserves rose by $7.2 billion to $418.7 billion, from $411.5 billion recorded the previous week.

Reuters data shows the central bank could have bought around $4.5 billion that week to keep the rouble from rising too rapidly RUB=.

Dmitry Kharlampiev, analyst at Petrocommerce Bank, said the regulator's interventions amounted to around $5.2 billion.

"This is, of course, thanks to the comfortable situation of

the rouble," he said.

Analysts estimated the reserves also gained substantially - by as much as $3.7 billion -- from the firming of the euro EUR= and rising gold prices XAU=.

Some 47 percent of the cash pile is currently held in dollars, around 40 percent in euros and 10 percent in sterling. Russian central bank officials have said that, in the future, the country would like to add another two or three currencies.

 Russia holds the world's third-largest gold and foreign exchange reserves, after China and Japan.

SUBSCRIBE to Mineweb.com's free daily newsletter now.

Disclaimer

MINEWEB is an interactive publication, with rolling deadlines through each day, commencing in the Sydney morning,  and concluding, 24 hours later,  in the Vancouver evening.  If you believe your side of an issue deserves inclusion, but has failed to meet one of our deadlines, you are invited to notify the Editor in Chief in Johannesburg, and we will include you in our editing and expanding on our stories. Email him at alechogg@gmail.com

Print story      Email story      Subscribe to free newsletter

Back