NBR''s gold reserve appraised at 1.47bn euros in late 2005

The National Bank of Romania withdrew its monetary gold deposits from Barclays and Morgan Stanley, choosing to keep those with the Bank of England, Nova Scotia and Fortis Bank Brussels, worth approximately 871 million euros. According to the financial statements of NBR for 2005, the gold stock amounted to 103.55 tonnes at the end of last year and was re-evaluated at 5.3 billion RON (1.47 billion euros). Out of the total stock, the National Bank keeps approximately 61 tonnes with the Bank of England. NBR posted nearly 124,000 euros in losses from precious metals operations, due to the unfavourable differences between the market price and the average cost of closing the deposits with Barclays and Morgan Stanley. Other factors to have contributed to these losses were the taxes paid on the amount of gold with the Bank of England and the expertisation charges for precious metals in the central Treasure. The standard gold ingots were appraised at 1.42 billion RON (397 million euros) at the end of 2005, amid an increase in the gold price worldwide. The NBR also has gold coins worth 738 million RON (205 million euros), with most assets in gold, worth 3.13 billion RON (871 million euros) being in form of foreign deposits. ZF