OREANDA-NEWS Russian Central Bank of the Russian Federation increased its share of the assets of China in reserves in the first quarter of 2018 and reduced the share of assets in the USA, France and the UK. This follows from  the review of the Bank of Russia's foreign currency and gold asset management activities.

In particular, during the period from 31 March 2017 to 31 March 2018, the share of US assets in the reserves of the Bank of Russia decreased to 29.4% from 32.4%, the share of assets in Germany increased to 12.9% from 10.6%, the share of French assets decreased to 12.0% from 14.0% for the share of assets in the UK fell to 5.7% from 5.8%, while the share of assets of the PRC jumped to 4.8% from 0.1%.

In the geographical breakdown of assets in the reserves of the Central Bank, the first place as of March 31, 2018 was still occupied by US securities (29.4% of total assets), Germany was in second place (12.9%), and France (12.0%). The regulator discloses information on the foreign exchange structure of reserves with a six-month delay.

"During the period under review (from April 2017 to March 2018), the volume of assets of the Bank of Russia in foreign currencies and gold increased by $57.2 billion and amounted to $460.0 billion. The most positive impact on the size of assets was the change in foreign exchange rates to the US dollar, the purchase of foreign currency and gold on the domestic market, as well as the change in the price of gold," the regulator said.

The head of the Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullina in June noted that the regulator pursues policy is diversification of international reserves, taking into account all the risks — financial, economic and geopolitical. Investments in yuan have been the most profitable of the investments among the reserve currencies.

From April 2017 to March 2018, the yield of the securities in CNY was 2.17%, follows from the data of the Russian Central Bank. The second level of profitability for the same period was investment in the Australian dollar — 1.66%. Paper in Euros had a negative yield of minus 0.33 per cent.