NBS Confirms That It Has Considered Keeping Part of State Reserves in Yuan, But That the Decision Has Not Yet Been Made

The National Bank of Serbia (NBS) has confirmed that it has considered keeping a part of state FX reserves in yuan, the Chinese currency, which was also announced earlier as a possibility by the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic.

– Considering the high level of FX reserves, the fact that yuan is part of the exchange structure of the external debt of Serbia, as well as the internationalization of the yuan and its increasing importance in global payments and in the international financial market, the National Bank of Serbia has considered investing a part of FX reserves in assets denominated in yuan as one of the options for expanding the investment universe – the NBS said for the N1 portal.

They add that the concrete decision has not yet been made, that is, that the NBS is in the process of securing the necessary preconditions (infrastructure) for the inclusion in the Chinese bond market.

– As in all other cases, concrete decisions on investing a certain part of foreign exchange reserves in financial instruments denominated in yuan will be made with a careful consideration and analysis of all the necessary factors, considering also that the Chinese yuan is the fifth most traded international currency in the global financial market, also the fifth most frequently used currency in global payments and the sixth biggest currency by its share in the global FX reserves – the NBS said.

The president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, stated on Wednesday in Beijing, where Serbia signed the Free Trade Agreement and many other agreements with China, that, since January 2015, the Chinese yuan had been on the list of the currencies of Serbia for the international market and that the NBS considered including that Chinese currency in its FX reserves.

Narodna banka Srbije Beograd

Predsedništvo Republike Srbije

Aleksandar Vučić

yuan

FX reserves in yuan

Free Trade Agreement with China

Chinese bond market