June 12 (SeeNews) - The foreign exchange (FX) reserves held by Serbia's central bank rose to 11.656 billion euro ($13.2 billion) at the end of May, up by 319.6 million euro on a monthly comparison basis, the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) said.
The increase in gross FX reserves in May was mostly the result of efficient reserve management, positive net market effect and net inflows to reserves from NBS activities in the interbank foreign exchange market (IFEM), the central bank said in a statement on Tuesday.
The volume of trading on the IFEM in May decreased to 438.7 million euro, down by 10.1 million euro month-on-month, the NBS said.
The FX reserves held by NBS as at end-May were enough to cover about five months’ worth of imports of goods and services, NBS said.
In May, the dinar stood unchanged against the euro, and the NBS intervened by buying 110 million euro on the interbank market in order to tame excessive daily volatility of the exchange rate.
Net FX reserves (total reserves less banks’ FX balances on account of required reserves and other requirements) amounted to 9.709 billion euro at end-May, up from 9.362 billion euro a month earlier.
($ = 0.882397 euro)