At the end of 2022, China became the largest gold and foreign exchange reserves holder in the world for the 17th time in a row, while Russia ranked 4th, based on data from respective national central banks.

China remained the leader – at the end of December, the Celestial Empire’s Fox reserves stood at $3.31 trillion. Japan came in second with $1.27 trillion and Switzerland – third with $924 billion.

Russia, which gave up its fourth place to India last year, bounced back in the summer and ended the year in 4th place with $582 billion in gold assets (its most Fx reserves are frozen due to sanctions). India remains 5th with $563 billion in reserves.

Saudi Arabia, with savings of $460 billion, moved up two positions for the year to sixth place, displacing Hong Kong ($424 billion) to seventh and South Korea ($424 billion) to eighth. Singapore, which was in 9th place in 2021, lost two notches in a year and fell out of the top 10, which allowed Brazil ($325 billion) to move up to 9th position and Germany ($295 billion) to 10th.

Meanwhile, the ruble will have been under pressure because of the announcement of the oil price cap to become enacted by the EU. This will be the single largest disturbing factor for the Russian currency for at least next couple of weeks. On Monday, February 6, in Asia, Brent crude traded at $80.11 (still a mediocre +0.56%). Oil prices advanced after retreating last week – apparently taking into account the outcome of the recent OPEC+ meeting, because this might unlikely be a reaction to the decision of the EU to agree on a price cap for Russian oil products. The cap will be set at $100/bbl for products traded at a premium and $45/bbl for products traded at a discount. It is planned to limit prices for Russian oil products in February.