Page 49 - RusRPTMar20

The CBR is also taking its foot off the gas to a certain extent and has slowed its purchase of gold and has even re-invested part of its reserves in US treasury bills as it looks for a home for its excess cash.
From 1,680 tonnes of monetary reserve gold held by the CBR in January 2017 the volume increased by half to 2,242 tonnes in January 2020, but since the autumn of 2019 the pace of growth in the accumulation of gold has slowed noticeably.
5.3​ FDI
The current account surplus of Russia’s balance of payments came in at $9.5bn in January 2020, versus $10.2bn in January 2019, according to the data from the Central Bank of Russia (CBR). The ​current account posted a surplus of $70.6bn in 2019​, being below the $113.5bn seen in 2018.
The changes in the current account position are being affected by the FDI which have been negative in recent years, but that outflow came to a halt in 2019 and may reverse in 2020.
Russia takes in almost nothing in net FDI, although as bne IntelliNews reported the picture with FDI is very confused, partly because foreign companies working in Russia that reinvest their profits is counted as FDI, partly because​ ​a lot of FDI comes via second countries​ and partly because a lot of FDI is simply phantom​, according to the IMF. Almost a quarter of the FDI registered entering Russia in 2019 was actually Russian investment and not foreign at all, an IMF study found last year.
According to the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) official figures, at the end of 2017 the total stock of Russia’s FDI was $441.1bn. Of this total $255bn was made by shell companies from “trans-shipment” jurisdictions – convenient
49​ RUSSIA Country Report​ March 2020 ​ ​www.intellinews.com