Russia's Uneximbank exported gold, silver
Monday June 1, 11:19 am Eastern Time
MOSCOW, June 1 (Reuters) - Russia's powerful Uneximbank said on Monday it had delivered the first lot of over one tonne of gold and 12 tonnes of silver to London on Saturday under a precious metals export licence it had recently obtained.
An Uneximbank statement quoted the head of the bank's precious metals department, Yevgeny Ivanov, as saying that gold exports would allow Uneximbank to buy precious metals from prospectors at a price above what the central bank pays commercial banks.
Another big Russian bank, Rossiisky Kredit, said in May it planned to export 20 tonnes of gold and 50 tonnes of silver this year.
Russia has recently allowed commercial banks and major gold producers to export gold directly, instead of through the central bank, as part of the project to liberalise the heavily centralised sector.
Output has slumped in recent years since as producers do not have the funds to pre-finance production, and the government introduced the current measure to enable commercial banks to arrange finance which it was no longer able to do.
Uneximbank's statement said the bank had already extended credits to gold-miners to finance seven tonnes of gold production, adding credit volumes would increase.
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