Nabiullina: The Central Bank Doesn’t Intend to Fully Abandon the Dollar in Reserves

The Bank of Russia doesn’t intend to completely abandon the US dollar as part of Russia’s international reserves (MRR), and is not going to buy gold on the domestic market due to the change in the structure of the National Wealth Fund (NWF), the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina said.

“We do not intend to completely abandon the dollar. The currency structure of the reserves reflects all sorts of risks, including those of an economic nature,” the head of the Central Bank explained.

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said earlier that the Finance Ministry will change the structure of the NWF in the coming month. The share of the dollar in the NWF will be reduced to zero, the British pound – to 5%, the Japanese yen – will remain at 5%, the euro – will rise to 40%, the yuan – to 30%. The share of gold will increase to 20%.

“The Central Bank, regarding the operations of the Ministry of Finance, within the framework of the budget rule, buys currency on the domestic market, including dollars and euros. These are operations that are necessary to bring the currency structure of the MRR in line with the regulatory structure established by the Bank of Russia. When managing foreign exchange reserves, we take into account the currency structure of the NWF, because these are our obligations to the Ministry of Finance,” Nabiullina said.