May 15 (SeeNews) - The foreign exchange (FX) reserves held by Serbia's central bank fell to 11.336 billion euro ($12.7 billion) at the end of April, down by 104.5 million euro on a monthly comparison basis, the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) said.
The decrease in gross FX reserves in April was mostly the result of the government’s effort to significantly reduce FX debt and improve currency structure, NBS said in a statement on Tuesday.
In April, the government repaid 130.2 million euro net on account of early and regular repayment of FX loans and securities issued in the domestic market, the central bank said.
The volume of trading on the interbank foreign exchange market in April decreased to 448.8 million euro, down by 25.6 million euro month-on-month.
The FX reserves held by NBS as at end-April were enough to cover about five months’ worth of imports of goods and services, NBS said.
In April, the dinar depreciated nominally by 0.2% against the euro, and the NBS intervened by buying 75 million euro on the interbank market in order to tame excessive daily volatility of the exchange rate.
Net FX reserves (total reserves less banks’ FX balances on account of required reserves and other requirements) amounted to 9.362 billion euro at end-April, slightly up from 8.963 billion euro a month earlier.
($ = 0.892358 euro)