Remarkable decline in Central Bank reserves

Last week, the TCMB's reserves fell by 13 billion dollars to 185.5 billion dollars. This decline, according to calculations obtained by Reuters from three bankers, also includes gold reserves. These calculations, based on the TCMB's preliminary data, revealed that net reserves also decreased by 12 billion dollars to 67.5 billion dollars. Bankers stated that more than 5 billion dollars of this decline in net reserves stemmed from a 3.3% drop in gold prices.

Net reserves excluding swaps were calculated to have fallen by more than 11 billion dollars to 52 billion dollars. It was stated that the TCMB sold between 5 and 5.5 billion dollars in foreign currency last week due to rising political tensions. During this period, the lawsuit filed with the request to cancel the CHP convention was closely followed in the markets, and with the dismissal of the case, the Turkish Lira and TL-denominated investment instruments followed a positive trend.

At the time this report was prepared, no official statement could be obtained from the TCMB. Official data is expected to be released later this week.