Romanian central bank’s foreign currency reserves go down in 2017

Romania’s National Bank (BNR) saw its foreign currency reserves increase by EUR 432 million in December 2017 versus the previous month, to EUR 33.49 billion. However, the reserves went down by EUR 748 million versus December 2016, when they stood at EUR 34.24 billion. The reserve decline in 2017 was due to the central bank’s decision to reduce the local bank’s foreign currency-denominated required reserves and the payments Romania made on its loans from the European Commission and World Bank. The central bank may have also sold euro to prevent a steeper depreciation of the local currency RON, something that the BNR officials have never admitted directly. Romania’s gold reserve stood at 103.7 tons at the end of 2017 and its value was EUR 3.61 billion. Thus, the foreign currency plus gold reserve totaled EUR 37.1 billion at the end of December. editor@romania-insider.com