Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves decreased by 5.2 percent in September to about 517 billion U.S. dollars as of Oct. 1, the Central Bank said Friday.
In its latest regular report, the bank said Russia's international reserve assets have increased by 7.8 percent in the first nine months of the year, reaching 545.012 billion dollars by September.
Bank analysts said the decline was mainly attributed to the negative currency revaluation caused by the decrease of the euro exchange rate and the government interventions to prevent a weakened rouble.
The bank said it was not going to update its reserve forecast for 2011, despite the significant reduction against the background of the global financial instability and capital outflow from the country.
Earlier this week, deputy head of the Central Bank Alexei Ulyukayev confirmed the country's international reserves would stand at about 515 billion dollars by the end of the year.
Russia's international reserves include foreign currency assets, the Special Drawing Rights (SDR), the country's reserve position in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and monetary gold.
Russia's highest level of international reserves hit 598.1 billion dollars in August 2008, while the lowest was only 10.7 billion dollars on April 2, 1999./.