Golden rule: Russia brings bullion & foreign currency reserves to new highs

Russia’s gold bullion holdings have reached $109.5 billion as the nation continues to shift its growing international reserves away from the US dollar, according to the latest data released by the country’s central bank.

Russia has increased its stockpile of the precious metal by more than $7.5 billion in one month, figures released by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) on Friday show. Thus, the share of gold in the nation’s reserves has set a new record, jumping to 20.7 percent from the previous 19.6 percent.

At the same time the country continues to boost its international reserves, which have reached record highs not seen since February 2013. The foreign exchange reserves rose around $9.2 billion or 1.8 percent in one month to reach $529.083 billion on September 1.

Russia has been consistently stockpiling gold bullion in recent years to cut reliance of the economy on the greenback. Thanks to the massive purchases of the precious metal, Russia was crowned  the world’s largest purchaser of gold last year.

As of the end of July, Russia’s gold holdings amounted to around 2,217.68 tons after it added another 9 tons of the yellow metal to its coffers in one month. Since the beginning of the year, the central bank has increased its bullion holdings by a total of 106 tons.

If Moscow continues boosting its international reserves, which include foreign currencies and monetary gold among other assets, it is poised to overtake Saudi Arabia and replace it as the fourth biggest holder of foreign currency reserves, according to a recent Bloomberg forecast. 

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