The National Bank of Serbia (NBS) FX reserves reached a total of EUR 10,204.7 mln at the end of December.
This is came following an increase of EUR 386.8 mln in the same month, the bank has announced, citing preliminary data.
The hard currency reserves are “sufficient to cover 207 percent of the money supply (M1) or more than six months’ worth of the country’s imports of goods and services,” the NBS announced.
“Up by EUR 231.0 mln from the month before, net FX reserves (total reserves less banks’ FX balances on account of required reserves and other requirements) came at EUR 8,364.0 mln at end-December. NBS FX reserves posted significant growth in December in both gross and net terms, despite the continuation of extremely unfavorable conditions for investment of foreign assets in the international financial markets,” the bank said, adding:
“In the month under review, the largest inflows to FX reserves came from the net increase in bank required reserve balances by EUR 136.1 mln, the sale of government FX securities surpassing the amount redeemed by EUR 108.1 mln and FX loan disbursements exceeding the repayments by EUR 90.1 mln. An inflow of EUR 113.1 mln was secured through successful FX reserves management and from other sources.”
These inflows were “more than sufficient to cover the outflows from FX reserves totaling EUR 107.3 mln.”
IFEM trading volumes reached EUR 622.1 mln in December, up by EUR 253.5 mln from the month before. Concluding with December 31, 2016, the volume of interbank trading totaled EUR 6,125.9 mln.
In December, the Serbian dinar (RSD) nominally depreciated against the euro by 0.2 percent, while the NBS intervened in the IFEM by net selling EUR 10 mln (buying EUR 90 mln and selling EUR 100 mln) in order to ease excessive daily volatility of the exchange rate, the bank said.
