ArmInfo.The gross international reserves of Armenia decreased in January-May 2022 by 2.4% or by $78.7 million, amounting to $3.151 billion, according to the data of the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia.
Of these, the lion's share - $ 3.105 billion falls on external assets in hard currency, and the share of SDR in the IMF amounted to $ 46.6 million. According to the report of the regulator, for January-May of this year, foreign assets in hard currency decreased by 2.9%, while the share of SDR in the IMF increased by 42%.
At the same time, the y-o-y dynamics (May 2022 versus May 2021) was upward: gross international reserves increased by 4.73% or by $142.6 million, with an increase in external assets in hard currency by 4.4% and the share of SDR in the IMF by 30.6%.
In May alone, gross international reserves slowed growth to 2.7% from 4.4% in April. Almost the same dynamics was observed for external assets in hard currency - a slowdown in growth from 4.5% in April to 2.8% in May. And the share of SDRs in the IMF lingered in the downturn, accelerating from 3.1% in April to 6.3% in May.
As a comparison, we note that in January-May 2021, the dynamics of gross international reserves was upward: foreign assets in hard currency increased by 14.1%, the share of SDR in the IMF quadrupled, which eventually increased gross international reserves by 15%. On a y-o-y terms (May 2021 to May 2020), an upward trend was also observed: gross international reserves increased by 11.3% due to the growth of external assets in hard currency by 13.1%, while the share of SDR in the IMF fell by 52%. And only in May 2021, gross international reserves got out of the 0.6% decline to 0.6% growth, with a similar reversal of the trend of external assets in hard currency from 1.8% decline to 0.7% growth, and the decline in the share of SDR in the IMF by 8.3% (after the April 13.2-fold increase).
In 2021, Armenia's gross international reserves (GIR) increased by 23% or by $599.4 million (against an 8.2% decline in 2020 and a pre-Covid 26.1% growth in 2019), reaching $3.230 billion. In the structure of the GIR, external assets in hard currency increased by 22.1% to $3.197 billion, and the share of SDR in the IMF increased 3.7-fold to $32.8 million, while in 2020 external assets in hard currency were at 8.3% recession, and the share of SDR in the IMF showed a relatively modest growth of 45.5%, against the pre- Covid growth in 2019 of the first one by 26.2% and the second one by 3.2%. The share of banking gold in Armenia's gross international reserves was set to zero in December 2003.
