Reuters: Russia does not plan to make any immediate adjustments to its dollar-denominated gold or foreign exchange reserves following Standard & Poor's downgrade of the United States' triple-A credit rating, the RIA Novosti agency cited a senior central bank official as saying.
"In the short-term this will not affect us," the agency quoted First Central Bank Deputy Sergei Shvetsov as saying on Saturday. Asked if the downgrade would affect Russia's holdings over the medium and long term, Shvetsov declined to answer.
Late on Friday, S&P cut the US rating by a notch to AA-plus from AAA. That sparked criticism of the United States from its largest creditor China and added to investor worries over US and the euro zone debt problems, which along with concern about global growth triggered a selloff in share markets around the world this week.
Russia took a calmer stance than China on Saturday, with Shvetsov saying the move would not affect the financial stability of Russia's economy, while Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak told the Interfax agency it was a minor cut.
"This has been such a mild correction that it can be disregarded from the point of view of investment management for a long time," Storchak, in charge of Russia's debt strategy and Moscow's sherpa to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, said.
Russia is one of the top 10 investors in US Treasuries and the world's third-largest holder of gold and foreign currency reserves. About a third of the country's $535 billion in reserves are in dollar instruments.
In July, Shvetsov told in an interview that the US debt would retain its benchmark status even if the United States technically defaulted.
"With 99.9 per cent probability we do not expect any problems. The US will remain the benchmark in any case. If there is no country with a 'AAA' rating, then the best country will have a 'AA' rating," he said then.
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