Share of Euro in Russian reserves rockets

In 2002, Russian gold and currency reserves advanced from $36.6bn to $47.8bn, the department of external and public relations of the Russian Central Bank reported today.

The Central Bank points out that the growth mainly took place due to US dollar purchases on the domestic market. In connection with this, the Central Bank bought for US dollars other foreign currencies in 2002 for diversifying the structure of the reserves' currency structure. As of the beginning of 2002, currency reserves were assets in US dollars and Euros, the share of Euros being less than 10 percent of currency reserves. By the end of 2002, the share of Euros in the reserve structure more than doubled. The same happened to other currencies. The share of dollars dropped from almost 90 percent to less than 75 percent over the past year.

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