ArmInfo. Armenia's gross international reserves for 2018 amounted to $ 2.249 billion, according to the data of the Central Bank of Armenia. The vast majority of these reserves-$ 2.243 billion is accounted for external assets in hard currency, and the share of SDR in the IMF was $ 6 million. According to the regulator's report, within the year the value of gross international reserves decreased by 2.8%; external assets decreased in the same amount, while the share of SDR fell by 17.5%.
In Q4 of 2018 alone, gross international reserves grew by 4.6%, while external assets in hard currency grew by 4.5% and the SDR share in the IMF grew 3.7-fold. In previous quarters, the dynamics were as follows: in Q3, international reserves increased by 7.9%, while external assets in hard currency grew by 8.1% and the SDR share in the IMF decreased by 70.3%; in the Q2, the decline in international reserves accelerated to 10.8% from 3.5% in Q1, in parallel with the acceleration of the decline in external assets in hard currency to 11.1% from 3.2% in the Q1, while the share of SDR in the IMF increased sharply 9.8-fold after the 92.3% decline in the Q1.
In December 2018, gross international reserves grew by 6.2%, and in their structure almost the same growth was observed in external assets in hard currency - by 6.3%, while the share of SDR in the IMF fell by 14%. Throughout 2018, the upward trend in gross international reserves was observed in July-September and in November-December, similarly to the periods of growth of external assets in hard currency, and the share of SDR in the IMF increased only in April and November. To note, in 2017, gross international reserves increased by 4.5%, with a similar increase in external assets in hard currency and a growth in the share of SDR in the IMF 1.6 -fold. In the Q4 of 2017, the gross international reserves increased by 9.5%, external assets in hard currency - as much as the share of SDR in the IMF - 8-fold. In December 2017, gross international reserves grew by 4.5%, and in their structure a similar increase was observed in external assets in hard currency, with a drop in the share of SDR in the IMF by almost 40%. To recall, the share of banking gold in Armenia's gross international reserves was zeroed in December 2003.