Experts Link Drop In Gold And Currency Reserves To Central Bank's Currency Interventions

The volume of gold and currency reserves of the Russian Central Bank plummeted $300 million as of November 2 and reached $38.5 billion. It is important to note that this was the fifth time when the bank's gold and currency reserves dropped in the past two and a half months. In view of this, it will be difficult for the bank to accumulate gold and currency reserves worth $45 billion by the end of this year as planned before, presidential economic advisor Andrey Illarionov reported. Several banking experts linked the recent fall in reserves to large-scale interventions of the Central Bank for supporting the national currency at the end of October and the beginning of November. Specialists estimated the volume of these interventions at no less than $800 million a week.