Just ahead of a crucial vote at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on whether the IMF will include the Chinese currency into its special drawing rights (SDR) basket, the Bank of Russia appears to have added the yuan to its Forex reserve basket.
According to a report by Russia’s information agency TASS, referring to two sources close to the Bank of Russia, the central bank has included the Chinese currency to the foreign exchange reserve basket. One of the sources said the inclusion happened in mid-November.
Both sources said that the bank has not yet conducted any operations on physical buying of the yuan. They said the share of yuan in the Russian reserves will remain small and symbolic in the near term.
The press service of the Central Bank told TASS that the composition of reserves is officially unveiled with a six month delay, so the information about yuan addition to the FX reserve basket has yet to be confirmed (or rejected).
According to Bank of Russia’s data, at the end of 2014, the share of US dollar in the Russian reserves was 44%, euro accounted for 42% and British pound — for 9.5%. The reserves also include smaller percentages in Canadian dollars, Australian dollars, Swiss franc and Japanese yen.