Since the beginning of the year, Kyrgyzstan's international reserves have increased by almost $1bn, reaching a historic high of $4.3bn at the end of September. This figure has become the highest in the country's history.

The country's foreign exchange reserves have been traditionally demonstrating annual growth, although, in some months and years, there were short-term declines. Since April 2023, the reserves have been demonstrating stable growth.

If we compare April 2024 with the analogous period of 2023, reserves increased by $1.3bn to $3.7bn. This was a record high then, which has been surpassed in subsequent months.

Since the beginning of the year, from January to September, reserves have increased by $988.2 million. Over the past seven years, starting from June 2017, Kyrgyzstan has more than doubled its reserves, from $2.03 billion.

It is important to note that the total volume of reserves is growing only, but their liquid part also. In 2023, it was at 96.7%-97.7% of the total, and since May 2024, the ratio has exceeded 98%, reaching 98.24% at the end of September.

The structure of gold and foreign exchange reserves has also changed. As of the end of July 2024, the National Bank increased the volume of physical gold by 17% to 832,200 troy ounces.

Kyrgyzstan ranked third in Central Asia in terms of gold reserves. But this is on the condition, as the World Gold Council indicates, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan do not have the precious metal in their reserves. Although, at the end of 2023 the Council indicated Afghanistan had 21.87 tonnes of gold in reserves (then ahead of Kyrgyzstan by 300 kilograms) and Tajikistan - 8.46 tonnes.

According to the World Gold Council, which displays data at the end of the second quarter, the republic had 25.84 tonnes in reserves (at the end of July, 46.6 kilograms more).

Overall, the Central Asian countries had 689.78 tonnes of gold in reserves. This is taking into account that in the first quarter of this year Kazakhstan bought 16.39 tonnes of gold, and Uzbekistan sold - 13.69 tonnes. In the second quarter, the picture changed - Kazakhstan sold 11.83 tonnes, and Uzbekistan bought 7.46 tonnes. Thus, at the end of the second quarter, Uzbekistan had the most gold in reserves in Central Asia (365.15 tonnes), followed by Kazakhstan with 298.8 tonnes.

We would add, that since the beginning of the year, Kyrgyzstan's reserve assets in foreign currency have also increased - +14.4% since January 2024, to $1 bln 502.5 mln. The main growth was due to securities, in which the country's savings increased by 41.7% since January 2024, to $546.5 mln.

At the same time, the amount of currency and deposits increased by 3.1%. At that, Kyrgyzstan's deposits in other national central banks, the Bank for International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund decreased by $97.9 million.