OREANDA-NEWS The Central Bank of Russia with a six-month lag revealed the geographical and monetary structure of its international reserves. As of the end of June 2018, the US dollar lost its long-term superiority in Russian gold and currency reserves: its share fell to a historic low of 21.9% compared to 43.7% at the end of March 2018.

In April—May, Russia staged an unprecedented sale of US government bonds, eliminating for two months $81 billion. This happened immediately after the April round of sanctions against the largest Russian businessmen, including Oleg Deripaska and Viktor Vekselberg, En+, Rusal and "Renova".

Information about Russia's withdrawal from US Treasury bonds came from the US Treasury Department, which publishes monthly data on foreign investments in us national debt. But in what currency has shifted Russia, it was unknown.

Based on the information provided by the Bank of Russia for the second quarter of 2018:

  • the Central Bank reduced reserves in dollars by about $100 billion (from $ 201 billion to $100 billion);
  • reserves in euros increased by about $ 44 billion (from $ 102 billion to $147 billion);
  • the same $ 44 billion increased reserves in Chinese yuan (from $ 23 billion to $ 67 billion);
  • reserves in Japanese yen increased from zero to $20.6 billion.

Thus, the Bank of Russia in the second quarter of 2018 transferred about $ 100 billion from US dollars to euros, yuan and yen.

As of the middle of last year:

  • the Euro accounted for 32% of Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves;
  • the share of the dollar-21.9%;
  • the share of gold-16,7%;
  • the share of the Chinese yuan-14.7%;
  • another 6.3% in the portfolio of the Central Bank held the pound sterling;
  • 4.5% — Japanese yen;
  • 2.9% - Canadian dollar;
  • 1% — Australian dollar.

For the second quarter, the Central Bank reduced the share of reserves placed in securities of foreign issuers (foreign governments and issuers, with the guarantee of a foreign government), nearly $45 billion and increased its share of the reserves as deposits with foreign counterparties and account balances with foreign correspondents on $37.5 billion Is the deposits of the Bank of Russia in the other national Central banks, Bank for international settlements and the International monetary Fund, as well as in foreign commercial banks.

Part of the funds that the Central Bank transferred to the Euro currency could be placed in government bonds of France, follows from the data of the Bank of Russia: geographically, the share of investments in France increased from 12 to 15.5%. This is the largest investment direction after gold in the vaults of the Bank of Russia. The share of Germany decreased from 12.9 to 12.7%.