Business news from Ukraine

NBU BUYS AROUND 70,000 TROY OUNCES OF GOLD, RETURNS GOLD STOCKS TO OCT 2014 LEVEL

26 August , 2015  

KYIV. Aug 26 (Interfax-Ukraine) – The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) in July first this year bought around 70,000 troy ounces of gold or around 2.2 tonnes, the regulator has said on its website.

The central bank said that its official gold reserve has been returned to the level of October 2014 – 0.84 million troy ounces or around 26.1 tonnes.

Due to the decline in the cost of gold the value of gold reserve as of late July 2015 was $912.54 million, which is 7.7% less than in October 2014.

As reported, since August 2004 the official gold reserve of the NBU was permanently expanded.

The largest gold reserve of 1.38 million troy ounces was reached in April 2014, and after the audit of reserves the gold reserve narrowed by 90,000 troy ounces in May. In October 2014, the NBU sold around 0.46 million troy ounces of gold or 14.3 tonnes.

As for the unofficial gold reserve, in December 2014 it fell by 2.8 times in money terms, to $43.3 million and it has been estimated at $54-58 million in the past three months.

The share of gold reserve of total forex reserve of the country was the largest in February 2015 – 16.4%. By late July the share of gold reserve was 8.8%, while in October 2014 it was 7.9%.