OREANDA-NEWS. December 19, 2014. The official reserve assets in past November decreased by 283 million dollars against October, down to 2 billion 366.80 million dollars.

This is the biggest monthly drop recorded after the 2009 financial crisis, when the National Bank of Moldova (BNM) massively intervened to stop a sharp depreciation of the Moldovan currency (leu).

The foreign-exchange reserves dropped in November following the BNM interventions on the foreign exchange market, according to data by the National Bank. The net interventions on the local foreign exchange market in the form of foreign currency sales went up to 111.27 million dollars, and the net result of swap type operations on the local foreign exchange market as sales of foreign currency stood at 169.27 million dollars.

BNM data also shows that the diminution of foreign currency reserves by over 283 million dollars in last November is almost comparable to their increase by 305 million dollars in 2013.

BNM also highlights that the decrease of official assets occurred also following the depreciation of the exchange rates of the component currencies of the foreign-exchange reserves against the dollar, payments associated with the servicing of Moldova's foreign debt and external payments of the Finance Ministry.

At the same time, in November, the Finance Ministry received a 7.22-million-dollar-worth grant upon an order by the European Commission, and the entries dealing with the mandatory foreign-exchange reserves of the authorised banks were of 4 million dollars. The reserves were supplemented with incomes from the management of foreign-exchange reserves and a grant worth 2.27 million dollars received by the Finance Ministry from Romania.

The National Bank of Moldova said the foreign- exchange reserves had diminished by over 450 million dollars since early 2014.