BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 24
By Ilkin Seyfaddini - Trend:
Official reserve assets of Uzbekistan amounted to $32.3 billion as of July 1, 2020, Trend reports with reference to the Central Bank of Uzbekistan.
The country's reserves are still very poorly diversified - almost everything is stored in the form of monetary gold ($19.4 billion) and foreign currency ($12.4 billion). Uzbekistan plans to solve this problem by purchasing US Treasury bonds.
The official reserves exceeded $32 billion for the first time since the Central Bank began to disclose this information (autumn 2017), 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 20 months of imports. This is well above than the three months recommended by international organizations for developing countries, the report says.
Uzbekistan exported $2.1 billion worth of gold in the first half of 2020.
President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev has previously instructed to ensure modernization of 385 units of geophysical, drilling, mining and laboratory equipment this year. A task has been set to explore 16 promising hydrocarbon sites by the end of 2020 and confirm the volume of reserves in 23 new deposits.
---
Follow author on Twitter: @seyfaddini