Deputy minister says Finance Ministry to buy only gold for Gokhran

KASIMOV, Ryazan Region, Feb 2 (PRIME) -- The Finance Ministry has revised its strategy to acquire valuables for the state precious metals and gems repository Gokhran to set gold purchases among the priorities, Deputy Minister Alexei Moiseyev told reporters on Friday.

“Last year 2.2 tonnes of gold worth 7 billion rubles was bought for Gokhran. We had not bought gold for two years, but then resumed the purchases and plan to continue them. The pause was linked with the revision of the strategy,” he said.

Moiseyev added that gold in bars will be acquired as it is a liquid instrument that has a market price so it can be sold any time to cover budget deficit.

“We have allocated 10 billion rubles for purchases for Gokhran this year, of which 8.5 billion rubles will be spent on bar gold and the rest on materials for existing articles,” he said.

The federal budget implies precious metals and gems purchases for Gokhran at 8.5 billion rubles in 2018 and 10.5 billion rubles in 2019 and in 2020. The budget also envisages sales of 7.5 billion rubles worth of the materials each year in 2018-2020.

The official also said that no commercial diamond purchases from Smolensk-based Kristall plant are planned yet.

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