Central Bank's reserves drop

The gold and currency reserves of the Russian Central Bank amounted to $54.5bn as of March 21, which was a $200m drop compared to the previous week. This has been the first decrease in the reserves since December 27, 2002, when the reserves also eased back by $200m. As a result, the volume of the reserves has in fact retreated to the level of the beginning of March. As reported earlier, in the period from January 3 to March 14, 2003 the gold and currency reserves of the Central Bank advanced by $7bn from $47.7bn to $54.7bn.

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