Baku. 4 February. REPORT.AZ/ SOFAZ (State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan) is planning to double its gold reserves to 100 tonnes in 2019, Executive Director Shahmar Movsumov said in an interview to Bloomberg.
"The Fund is looking to almost double its holdings of the precious metal in 2019 to 100 tons after resuming purchases in 2018," he said.
All of the gold SOFAZ buys overseas is transported to Azerbaijan to be stored in its new building on Baku’s Heydar Aliyev Avenue. Asked why the fund doesn’t want to keep at least part of its gold holdings abroad, Movsumov said it’s a purely commercial decision and has nothing to do with trust.
In 2012, SOFAZ started to diversify by adding gold, equities and real estate. As at the end of 2018, the gold reserves in the fund’s investment portfolio made up 50,953 kg.
SOFAZ’s investment policy allows it to double the allocation for gold to 10 percent of its investment portfolio.