Reserves position The gross external reserves of the Bank increased by more than 23 per cent since December 2008 and stood at nearly Rs70 billion in December 2009, while the net international reserves exceeded the Rs100 billion mark for the first time in November 2009 and represented nearly 43 weeks’ imports.
While the Bank pursued its strategy of investing in higher-yielding instruments, it also reviewed its investment policy to increase concentration in near-cash instruments to respond to the crisis. In addition, the Bank purchased two metric tons of gold under the limited gold sales programme of the IMF in November 2009 to diversify our portfolio of foreign assets and mitigate the impact of currency volatility.