MOSCOW, February 19 (RIA Novosti) - The growth of Russia's gold and currency reserves will slow down in the coming years and may cease in 2011, a central bank official said Monday.
Discussing a draft federal budget for 2008-2010 in the Federation Council, parliament's upper house, Alexei Ulyukayev, first deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia, said gold and currency reserves will continue growing until 2010, but at lower rates than in 2006.
"Growth may stop in 2011," he said.
The official added that the coming three years would be different from the last six or seven years, which were successful for the country's finance and economy.
Ulyukayev said Russia is entering a phase of shrinking trade surplus due to growing imports and declining oil prices.
"That means that despite prospects for a positive and stable influx of private capital into Russia, worth $25-30 billion, it will be impossible to prevent a decline in the surplus of current accounts and in trade surplus," the official said.
The CBR said last week that Russia's gold and foreign currency reserves increased by $4.9 billion to $309.5 billion in the week of February 2-9.
