Russia Returns to Gold Market, Buys Tons More Precious Metal
SputnikNews.com
22.02.2017
In January, Russia continued to increase its gold reserves with a large purchase of more than one million troy ounces, Vesti.ru reports.
n January, Russia increased its gold reserves by 37 metric tons, equivalent to more than a million troy ounces, Vesti.ru reported on Tuesday.
As a whole, Russia’s foreign reserves grew by four percent last month, and stood at $393.6 billion on February 10.
The January purchase followed a pause in December, when Russia didn’t buy any gold. Prior to the hiatus, Russia consistently increased its gold reserves. In November 2016 it bought 31 metric tons, and in October bought 48 tons, the largest purchase since 1998.
In 2016 as a whole, the Russian central bank bought 6.4 million troy ounces of gold, or around 200 metric tons of the precious metal. The previous year, the central bank increased its gold reserves by 206 metric tons.
At a Thomson Reuters conference in September, deputy head of the central bank’s department of statistics Anton Navoi said that gold makes up 16 percent of Russia’s foreign currency reserves, but Russia has not set a specific target it wants to reach.
“The bank is buying gold because it’s advantageous. Our country is third in the world in terms of gold production, and we have the opportunity to buy it in our national currency, in contrast to other countries that don’t have such an opportunity,” Navoi explained.
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