BELGRADE (Serbia), August 11 (SeeNews) – The foreign exchange (FX) reserves held by Serbia's central bank fell to 13.5 billion euro ($15.9 billion) at the end of July, down by 435.3 million euro on a monthly comparison basis, the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) said on Tuesday.
The July decrease in gross FX reserves is attributable to the settlement of foreign exchange liabilities, as well as forex market activities destined to mitigate the adverse economic effect of the coronavirus crisis, the NBS said in a statement.
The volume of trading on the Inter-bank Foreign Exchange Market (IFEM) in July decreased to 516.6 million euro, down by 66.2 million euro month-on-month, the NBS said.
The FX reserves held by NBS as at end-June were enough to cover about six months’ worth of imports of goods and services, NBS added.
In July, the dinar remained unchanged against the euro, and the NBS intervened by selling 325 million euro on the interbank market in order to tame excessive daily volatility of the exchange rate.
Net FX reserves (total reserves less banks’ FX balances on account of required reserves and other requirements) amounted to 11.4 billion euro at end-July, down from 11.8 billion euro in June.
($ = 0.847619 euro)