Croatia’s gross international reserves reach €15.7bn

ZAGREB, July 21 (Hina) – Croatia’s gross international reserves reached €15.7 billion at the end of May 2020, declining by 1.5% from the previous month and by 15.2% from May 2019, according to data from the Croatian National Bank (HNB).

The marked decline in international reserves in March, April and May is a direct consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and an accompanying near-total economic lockdown and depreciation of the domestic currency, to which the Croatian National Bank responded with interventions on the foreign exchange market to preserve the stability of the kuna-euro exchange rate, Raiffeisen Bank (RBA) says in its analysis of the HNB data.

According to the HNB, the fall in reserves in May was the result of foreign currency sales to banks outside of auctions and a lower amount of repo operations agreed.

The latest central bank data for July 10 shows that international reserves have increased to €17.6 billion.

The HNB’s assets totalled HRK 142.4 billion at the end of May, up by 6.7% from the previous month and down by 1.4% from the end of 2019. The changes primarily reflected movements of foreign exchange assets whose share in total assets fell to 85.8% in May, their lowest level since April 1999.

The central bank’s foreign exchange assets reached HRK 122.3 billion at the end of May, dropping by 1.1% from the previous month and by 14.3% from the end of 2019.

(€1 = HRK 7.535347)