Baku, Azerbaijan, July 13
By Maksim Tsurkov – Trend:
The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) currently has no plans to buy additional volumes of gold, despite the rise in prices of this precious metal, SOFAZ told Trend July 13.
SOFAZ said it is keeping gold reserves in a long-term and strategic manner.
The Fund added it sees investing in gold not only as an element of investment portfolio diversification, but also as a part of Azerbaijan’s strategic gold and currency reserves, aimed at insuring against both financial and political risks.
Currently, SOFAZ’s gold reserves include 30,175 kilograms of gold, which account for about 3.1 percent of its total assets.
The price for one ounce of gold went up by 27 percent to $1339.55 in the global market during the first half of 2016.
Currently, 4.6 percent of SOFAZ’s investment portfolio accounts for real estate, 3.1 percent for gold, 7.7 percent for assets, 2.5 percent for investments in projects, 80.6 percent for bonds and money market instruments.
SOFAZ was established in 1999 with assets of $271 million.
As of April 1, 2016, SOFAZ’s assets increased by 2 percent and amounted to $34.25 billion as compared to $33.57 billion in early 2016.
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