Central Bank's reserves decrease

The volume of the Russian Central Bank's gold and currency reserves was $82.7bn on May 14, which was $700m lower than on May 7. Meanwhile, in the period from April 30 to May 7 the reserves advanced by $700m. The recent decrease in the amount of the gold and currency reserves has been the largest one-week decrease since March 26. As a result, the current level of the gold and currency reserves is equal to the January 2004 level.

The reasons for this noticeable drop in the reserves seem to be payments on foreign debts made by the Russian Finance Ministry and fluctuations in the dollar rate against the euro and other leading currencies on international exchanges.