“This is a good example on how the global crisis affects the economic indicators in Romania. The crisis triggered significant changes regarding at least three factors, namely the exchange rates for euro versus the US dollar, the yen, the Swiss franc and the British pound, the capital flows, which saw large fluctuations from one month to another, and the gold prices,” said Adrian Vasilescu, adviser to the central bank governor.
Romanian foreign exchange reserves fell to EUR32.19 billion in October from EUR33.62 billion a month earlier, central bank data showed earlier Tuesday.
The increase of approximately EUR1.1 billion in the foreign currency reserves in September and the subsequent decrease by EUR1.4 billion in October were mostly due to exchange-rate fluctuations and capital flow movements, the bank said in a statement.
The variations in capital flows are common in times of financial and economic crisis, Vasilescu said.
He declined to comment on possible foreign currency sales made by the central bank in October.
As far as the central bank’s gold reserves are concerned, Vasilescu said they remained steady at 103.7 metric tons throughout the first ten months of 2011, but their value adjusted for international gold price changed from month to month.
So far in 2011, the fluctuations of the gold price has had a positive contribution to Romania’s international reserves of over EUR800 million, Vasilescu added.