Russia for the first time in four months increased its investments in US Treasury bonds. Such data was released by the US Treasury Department. Moscow recognized that overseas securities, despite all the tensions in relations between Russia and the United States, remain an attractive asset. In March, investments in government bonds increased by $ 2.3 billion, and now Russia holds $ 96.1 billion. In February, January and December, investments were down by $ 3.1 billion, $ 5.3 billion and $ 3.5 billion, respectively. Russia occupies the 16th place in the list of the largest creditors of the United States. The top three are China, whose investment in US debt is almost $ 1.2 trillion, Japan ($ 1.05 trillion) and Ireland ($ 318 billion).

In total, foreign states have accumulated US debt receipts worth $ 6.3 trillion. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in early May that he considers it necessary to "untie" the Russian economy from the dollar. According to him, the monopoly of the dollar is unreliable and dangerous, and getting rid of dependence on the American currency is the principle of economic sovereignty. Over the past year, the share of US Treasury bonds in the total volume of Russian reserves has decreased from 24.3% to 20.5%. Nevertheless, our country should not, in retaliation for US sanctions, completely refuse to own US government bonds, economists believe. On the eve of the faction of "Fair Russia" has submitted to the State Duma a draft law that prohibits the placement of the National Wealth Fund in bonds and other US securities. But experts warned: our rejection of the US debt will not do much damage to the US, since our share in the total amount is too small, whereas we ourselves will deprive ourselves of a profitable financial instrument. "This is a very strange bill. The ban on the purchase of US securities means that the NWF can not earn money and will be cached. Keep money in foreign currency accounts is not better than keeping it in securities, "- said Vladimir Bragin, Director of Global Markets Analysis and Macroeconomics" Alfa Capital ". If Russia withdraws all the funds from the debt securities of the United States, the question arises where to invest them. For the volume of funds for which American bonds are bought, it will be difficult to find suitable financial instruments. In addition to reliability, US Treasury bonds have a relatively high yield.

If you keep the FNB funds in 10-year US securities, then the yield will be about 3%. In this case, precious metals can not be considered an adequate substitute for US bonds. "You can, of course, invest in gold, but the price of gold fluctuates, and secondly, the metal needs to be stored somewhere, and this is not revenue, but additional costs. In addition, gold must first be turned into money, and not the fact that it will be sold at an adequate price, "- says Mikhail Belyaev, chief economist at the Institute of Stock Market and Management.