Russia still holds sufficient gold and renminbi even after the United States and other Western countries imposed sanctions on the central bank's reserves of dollars and other currencies, Elvira Nabiulina, governor of Russia's central bank, said in her annual report to parliament on Monday, local time.
According to reports, the annual report of the Russian central bank shows that the share of gold in Russia's international reserves was 21.5% in early 2022, 17.1% in RMB and 61.4% in other currencies.
As of January 1 this year, the share of gold in Russia's international reserves fell from 23.3% to 21.5%, the share of the dollar fell from 21.2% to 10.9%, and the share of sterling fell from 6.3% to 6.2%, according to the central bank of Russia. This means that the share of dollar reserves will fall by nearly half in the second half of 2021.
At the same time, the share of the euro rose from 29.2% to 32.9%, the share of the renminbi rose from 12.8% to 17.1%, and the share of other currencies rose to 10.4%.
It should be noted that in the foreign currency and gold asset structure of the central bank of Russia, the "other currencies" categories also include Japanese yen (5.9%), Canadian dollar (3.2%), Australian dollar (1.0%) and Singapore dollar (0.3%). The account balance of the Swiss franc is negligible.
By the end of 2021, the central bank's foreign currency and gold assets totaled US $612.9 billion, including US $481.4 billion in foreign exchange assets and US $131.5 billion in gold.
After the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the United States and its allies imposed comprehensive sanctions on Russia, including freezing Russia's foreign exchange reserves. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov estimated that Western countries have frozen about half of Russia's foreign exchange reserves, or about $300 billion, as part of the sanctions imposed on Ukraine.
But at the same time, Russia's central bank points out that Russia continues to have sufficient gold and renminbi reserves after Western countries freeze their foreign exchange reserves.
"this extraordinary and shocking situation will lead to a massive change in [reserves]," Nabiullina said in its report. The difficult process of adapting to the new conditions will inevitably lead to GDP contraction, but the Russian economy will be able to return to its growth trajectory. "
