Central Bank of Russia's operations with gold as part of mirroring substantiated amid growing market liquidity - deputy finance minister
MOSCOW. Nov 19 (Interfax) - Growing turnover and liquidity on the domestic gold market creates conditions for the Central Bank of Russia to mirror operations with the liquid foreign exchange assets of the National Wealth Fund (NWF) not only in yuan, but also in gold, Deputy Finance Minister Vladimir Kolychev said during an interview with Interfax.
Kolychev recalled that the Finance Ministry conducts operations with the Central Bank with the NWF's liquid foreign exchange assets, buying or selling both non-cash yuan and non-cash gold for rubles. The Central Bank in turn conducts equivalent operations in volume and focus on the domestic market, though only buying or selling yuan for rubles.
"The Central Bank executing equivalent operations on the domestic market, not only in yuan, but also in gold, is more justified considering that household demand for gold as a means of saving has increased in recent years, turnover on the domestic gold market has increased, and liquidity on the domestic gold market has risen," Kolychev said in response to the opinion of several analysts that the Central Bank is selling gold on the market, including as part of the budget rule.
Kolychev said that the decision on how to conduct market transactions is the Central Bank's prerogative.
Interfax has sent a request to the Central Bank of Russia.
Global gold prices have increased 1.5-fold since the start of the year. The price surpassed the $3,000 per ounce mark in March and $4,000 in October.
After the relaunch of the updated budget rule in January 2023, when the new regulatory structure of the NWF's assets was approved (yuan - up to 60%, gold - up to 40%), the Central Bank began conducting mirroring operations in the currency section of the Moscow Exchange in the yuan - ruble instrument.
In general, mirroring operations are conducted to reduce the impact of external market conditions and budgetary flows on the dynamics of the ruble exchange rate, aggregate demand and inflation.
In 2025, in addition to the levels of currency and gold purchases or sales announced by the Finance Ministry, the Central Bank has been adjusting the levels of its operations by the amount of deferred currency sales in 2024 under the budget rule and the level of NWF expenditures for financing the budget deficit outside the budget rule for 2024.
Thus, taking into account the announced levels of the Finance Ministry's operations from November 10 to December 4 (2.7 billion rubles in total, daily amount: equivalent to 0.1 billion rubles) and the size of the adjustment (sales of 8.94 billion rubles per day), the CBR is selling currency during this period in the amount of 9.04 billion rubles per day.
