Russia's Ministry of Finance has completely excluded the euro from the National Wealth Fund, as stated in a press release on the department's website.
"In December 2023, a portion of the assets of the National Wealth Fund in the accounts at the Bank of Russia, to the amount of 114,947.6 million Chinese yuan, 232,584.5 kilograms of gold in non-personalized form, and 573.7 million euros, was converted into 2,900,000 million rubles," the document said.
As of January 1, the volume of the National Wealth Fund (NWF) amounted to 11.965 trillion rubles or eight percent of the GDP projected for 2023 equivalent to $133.4 billion. Thus, in one month the volume of the fund decreased by one and a half trillion rubles.
The volume of liquid assets at the beginning of the year amounted to the equivalent of 5.012 trillion rubles or $55.88 billion.
The proceeds were credited to the unified account of the federal budget to cover its deficit. As a result of these operations, the euro account formed a "zero balance".
Russian authorities stopped investing National Wealth Fund funds in dollar assets in mid-2021. At the end of 2022, they likewise zeroed out accounts in British pounds and Japanese yen.
In particular, as of January 1, on separate accounting accounts for funds of the National Wealth Fund at the Bank of Russia, there were: 227.331 billion yuan, 358.961 kilograms of gold in non-personalized form, and 1.514 billion rubles. Deposits in VEB.RF, Russia’s major financial development institution, amounted to 658.822 billion rubles. In addition, $3 billion are placed in the bonds of Ukraine, which the country defaulted.
The total income from the placement of funds of the National Wealth Fund, excluding funds in accounts of the Bank of Russia, in 2023 amounted to 355.663 billion rubles, equivalent to $4.182 billion.