Tajik authorities have refrained from disclosing the volume of the country’s gold-and-currency reserves.
The Forecast of Tajikistan’s Monetary Policy for 2019 and Medium-Term Period, in particular, says the country’s gold-and-currency fell nearly 5 percent in a year to September 30, 2018.
The decrease in Tajikistan’s gold-and-currency reserves attributes to the fall in the international gold prices.
The Forecast notes that the country’s international reserves decreased 5.5 months of import cover on September 30, 2017 to 4.7 months of import cover on September 30, 2018.
In recent years, the National Bank of Tajikistan has refrained from disclosing the volume of the country’s gold-and currency reserves. .
However, proceeding from the fact that an average monthly volume of Tajikistan’s imports over the first nine month of last year amounted to 257 million U.S. dollars, one can suppose that Tajikistan’s gold-and-currency reserves amounted to 1.10 billion U.S. dollars as of October 1, 2018.
Meanwhile, Investing.com reports gold prices fell on January 21 to their lowest level of the year, as investor appetite for risk held up despite data showing China's 2018 economic growth slowed to a near three-decade low.
Comex gold futures were reportedly down $5.35, or around 0.4%, to $1,277.25 a troy ounce by 7:40AM ET (12:40 GMT). The precious metal hit a low of $1,276.80 earlier, the weakest since December 28.
Spot gold was trading at $1,278.11 per ounce, down $3.50, or almost 0.3%.
China's fourth-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) grew at the slowest pace since the global financial crisis, easing to 6.4% on-year as expected from 6.5% in the third quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said earlier.
That pulled full-year growth down to 6.6%, the slowest annual pace since 1990, as faltering domestic demand and bruising U.S. tariffs weighed.
The weak data supported the view that Beijing will have to roll out more stimulus to avert a sharper slowdown.
Elsewhere in metals trading, silver futures lost 16.1 cents, or about 1%, at $15.23 a troy ounce, according to Investigating.com.
Recall, a report by the World Bank, Tajikistan: Heightened Vulnerabilities, Despite Sustained Growth, notes that international reserves held by the National Bank of Tajikistan rose sharply in the first nine months of 2017 to 5.6 months of import cover, but this was largely the result of one-off effects and not indicative of a sustained improvement in economic fundamentals. The surge in reserves came primarily at the cost of debt accumulation, reflecting a US$500 million Eurobond issuance in September.
According to the report, the reserves were also supplemented by the acquisition of monetary gold through domestic currency issuances and foreign exchange purchases facilitated by administrative measures. In the medium-term, reserve levels are reportedly expected to gradually moderate as imports recover and construction of the Roghun hydroelectric power plant (HPP) accelerates.
