Reserve Fund down 290.5 bln rubles, NWF up 443.1 bln rubles in Dec - MinFin
MOSCOW. Jan 13 (Interfax) - The overall size of Russia's sovereign Reserve Fund on January 1, 2016, was 3.641 trillion rubles, or $49.95 billion, and the National Welfare Fund (NWF) was 5.227 trillion rubles, or $71.72 billion, the Russian Finance Ministry said in a statement.
On December 1, 2015, the Reserve Fund was at 3.931 trillion rubles, or $59.35 billion, and the NWF - 4.784 trillion rubles, or $72.22 billion.
The Reserve Fund therefore fell 290.5 billion rubles and the NWF grew 443.1 billion rubles during December.
A year earlier, on January 1, 2015, the Reserve Fund totaled 4.945 trillion rubles ($87.91 billion) and the NWF - 4.388 trillion rubles ($78 billion).
In December, the Finance Ministry sold $4.52 billion, 4.14 billion euro and 0.67 billion pounds sterling from the Reserve Fund for 710.67 billion rubles to finance the budget deficit. It was reported earlier that the MinFin raised 350 billion rubles from sale of Reserve Fund holdings to finance the deficit in November and 260 billion rubles in October.
The accounts of the Reserve Fund on January 1, 2016 contained $22.71 billion, 20.26 billion euro, and 3.44 billion pounds sterling.