BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 21
By Ilkin Seyfaddini – Trend:
Official reserve assets of Uzbekistan amounted to $31.2 billion as of May 1, 2020, Trend reports citing the Central Bank of Uzbekistan.
"The country's reserves are still very poorly diversified - almost everything is stored in the form of monetary gold ($ 18.2 billion) and foreign currency ($ 12.3 billion). This problem is planned to be solved by purchasing U.S.Treasury bonds," the report said.
For the first time since the Central Bank began to disclose this information (autumn 2017), the official reserves exceeded $31 billion, mainly due to an increase in gold prices.
The reserves, among other things, are considered a "cushion of safety" of the country - as a buffer in case of adverse external shocks, and sufficiency of reserves depends directly on the nature of these shocks.
Current reserves are sufficient to finance almost 16 months of imports. This is well above than the three months recommended by international organizations for developing countries, the report says.
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