The country’s gold reserves increased due to rising world gold prices

In January 2012 the National Bank of Belarus managed to avert a statistical cut down of the country’s international reserves due to a sharp increase of the world gold price and other bureaucratic tricks.

Belarus’ foreign reserves calculated by the IMF standards on February 1, 2012 amounted to USD 7968.20 million, increased by USD 52.3 million (0.7%) in January. Meanwhile, foreign currency reserves declined in January to USD 714.60 million (15.9%) and on February 1, 2012 amounted to USD 3774.1 million.

As of 1 February the NBB managed to save the benchmark for the gold reserves from the reduction due to higher gold prices: monetary gold increased by USD 485.4 million (25.5%) to USD 2390.1 million on February 1. Due to some bureaucratic tricks other assets amounted to USD 1225.7 million, an increase by USD 275.6 million (29%) in January.