July 10 (SeeNews) - The foreign exchange (FX) reserves held by Serbia's central bank rose to 12.146 billion euro ($13.629 billion) at the end of June, up by 490.5 million euro on a monthly comparison basis, the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) said on Wednesday.
The increase in gross FX reserves in June was mostly the result of efficient reserve management and net inflows to reserves from NBS activities in the interbank foreign exchange market (IFEM), the central bank said in a statement.
The volume of trading on the IFEM in May increased to 496.7 million euro, up by 58 million euro month-on-month, the NBS said.
The FX reserves held by NBS as at end-June were enough to cover about five months’ worth of imports of goods and services, NBS said.
In June, the dinar stood unchanged against the euro, and the NBS intervened by buying 735 million euro on the interbank market in order to tame excessive daily volatility of the exchange rate.
Net FX reserves (total reserves less banks’ FX balances on account of required reserves and other requirements) amounted to 10.142 billion euro at end-June, up from 9.709 billion euro a month earlier.
($ = 0.891132 euro)