Banca Naţională a României

At end-April 2003, NBR's foreign exchange reserves ran at EUR 5,762 million.

The EUR 67.2 million decline in April 2003 stemmed from the following operations:

• EUR 69 million worth borrowings from the IMF under the stand-by arrangement;
• EUR 20.3 million worth of incomes from international reserve management;
• EUR 59.7 million worth of repayments and interest payments falling due on external public debt, direct and bearing the sovereign guarantee of the Ministry of Public Finance;
• EUR 43.1 million worth of net redemption of foreign exchange-denominated government securities launched by the Ministry for Public Finance on the domestic market;
• EUR 4.5 million sales by the NBR on the forex market; and
• EUR 49.2 million in other net outflows (changes in the foreign exchange required reserves set up by commercial banks, surrenders to official forex reserves, bank commissions, quotas, a. s. o.).

The gold stock held steady at 105.3 tons, and following the developments in the world price of gold, its value fell to EUR 1,022.9 million, leaving the NBR's international reserves (gold included) at over EUR 6.78 billion.

Payments on external public debt, direct and bearing the sovereign guarantee of the Ministry of Public Finance, due by end-2003, amount to EUR 1,269 million.