NBR's foreign currency reserve up by just 4m euros

The foreign currency reserve of the NBR (National Bank of Romania) rose by just 4.1 million euros in October, to 25.21 billion euros. This is the lowest monthly increase in this year’s reserve, after the February-April period, which saw consecutive declines. Within the space of a year, the NBR’s reserve increased by 4.06 billion euros, up 19% against October 2006, amid a decline in the public and publicly guaranteed debt against last year’s volume. Foreign currency inflows totalled 532.1 million euros in October, around 200 million euros less than in September and 5 times less than in August. The sources mentioned by the NBR were: the rise in the volume of minimum foreign currency reserves that commercial banks have to set up, which are based on an increase in resources attracted in foreign currency, revenues derived by the central bank from managing the international reserve, “and other sources”. Within the next two months, NBR must make payments worth 186 million euros for the direct foreign public debt guaranteed by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. In the first eight months of the year, repayments on the foreign public debt totalled 680 million euros, in addition to 561 million euros in payments on the state-guaranteed foreign public debt. International reserves (foreign currency plus gold) amounted to 27 billion euros at the end of October, a mere 100 million-euro increase, after the NBR approved an reassessment of the gold reserve, which, according to international provisions, must only include standard gold.