Data issued by the Turkish Central Bank revealed a sharp decline in its gold reserves during the past week, as they decreased by about 50 tons to reach 772 tons. This is the largest weekly decline since August 2018, and is due to the repercussions of the war on Iran.
In a move aimed at stabilizing the markets, the central bank sold nearly three billion dollars in gold last week, in addition to foreign currency sales that amounted to $26 billion since the war began about a month ago.
According to Reuters, bankers reached calculations based on Central Bank data issued today, Thursday, indicating the sale of about 22 tons of gold during the past week.
Bankers indicated that the volume of exchange operations of the gold-backed Turkish lira for foreign currencies amounted to about 31 tons during the same week.
The fluctuations witnessed in the markets following the US-Israeli attack on Iran on February 28 accelerated the pace of foreign currency sales, which resulted in a decline in the central bank’s reserves as a result of currency sales on the one hand, and a decline in global gold prices on the other hand.
Bankers estimate that the decline in gold prices by approximately 10% over the past week has caused a decline in the value of the bank’s gold reserves by about eight billion dollars. Consequently, the value of gold within the total reserves of the Central Bank lost $18 billion last week, driven by gold exchange and sale operations, in addition to the decline in global gold prices.
In a related context, total foreign exchange reserves increased by $5.8 billion during the past week, while total reserves decreased by $12.2 billion to reach $177.5 billion.
