Belarusian reserves rise 2.7% in Nov, fall 7.4% in 11M to $7.798 bln

MINSK. Dec 7 (Interfax) - Belarusian gold and foreign-exchange reserves rose 2.7% or $207.9 million to $7.798 billion during November, the National Bank of Belarus said.

The reserves grew 1.2% or $85.5 million in October and 0.5% or $39.2 million in September. The reserves are recovering in H2 after falling to the lowest level this year, which was $7.4 billion on June 1 and 12.1% less than on January 1.

The reserves fell 7.4% or $627.3 million, in January-November.

The National Bank stopped publishing data on the structure of gold and foreign exchange reserves and the reasons for their changes in August 2022. The Belarusian Finance Ministry has also stopped publishing monthly data on budget execution and foreign debt, including data published in line with the International Monetary Fund's Special Data Dissemination Standard for Belarus.

The government redeemed $1.16 billion of domestic and external debt in H1 2022 and plans $4 billion this year as a whole. The National Bank has forecast the reserves will be at least $7 billion by the end of 2022, taking into account foreign and domestic debt repayments.

The reserves grew 12.8% to $8.425 billion in 2021 after falling 20.5% to $7.47 billion in 2020.

The National Bank of Belarus forecasts gold and foreign exchange reserves will be at least $6 billion at end-2023.