The Central Bank plans to continue diversifying its international reserves — across asset classes, currencies and counterparties, Governor Timur Ishmetov said today at the first International Public Assets Management Forum in Tashkent.

The forum brought together 77 delegates from 35 organizations, including asset managers, central banks, government institutions, international financial organizations and standard-setting bodies.

According to Ishmetov, the asset managers represented at the forum collectively oversee more than $36 trillion in assets, while the central banks and government institutions in attendance hold roughly $3.4 trillion in official reserves.

Reserves have reached $72 billion

Ishmetov said the country's gold and foreign exchange reserves topped $72 billion as of September 1 — enough to cover more than a year's worth of imports.

He also said the Central Bank added roughly 50 tonnes to its gold reserves in the first half of 2026, which, citing World Gold Council data, he described as the second-largest increase among central banks worldwide.

"Two features set our balance sheet apart. We are a gold-producing country, and gold has long made up a significant share of our reserves. On top of that, by international standards, we are a relatively young reserve manager," he said.

The Central Bank joined the World Bank's Reserve Advisory and Management Partnership (RAMP) in 2020. In 2024, the regulator purchased U.S. Treasury bonds for the first time, a move Ishmetov called "an important step in diversifying the portfolio."

The Central Bank also confirmed it continues to work with the World Bank on reserve management.

"We built this system deliberately, without trying to cut corners, guided by three well-known principles: safety, liquidity and return — in that order," Ishmetov said.

He added that what matters is not just the structure of the portfolio itself, but the institutional capacity to manage it. "You can restructure a portfolio in a week. You can't rebuild an institution that fast."

Looking ahead, Ishmetov said the next phase would involve further broadening the reserve structure.

"Our direction is further diversification — across asset classes, currencies and counterparties. And we don't intend to make these decisions based solely on our own judgment," he said.

One avenue under consideration, he said, is shifting part of the portfolio to external management, which would allow the Central Bank's portfolio managers to work alongside leading international specialists directly in the markets, then bring that experience back into the institution.

"How much concentration in a single asset can a sovereign balance sheet withstand?"

Ishmetov devoted much of his remarks to the shifting role of gold and the dollar in global reserves.

He cited a recent World Gold Council survey showing that 89% of central banks expect global gold holdings to increase, while 45% plan to add to their own gold reserves. Three-quarters of those surveyed also expect the dollar's share of global reserves to decline over the next five years.

By the end of 2025, Ishmetov said, the value of gold held in central bank reserves worldwide had surpassed the value of the U.S. Treasury bonds they hold.

"Gold's growing role reflects its appeal as a long-term store of value, a portfolio diversification tool, and an asset that carries no sovereign credit risk," he said.

At the same time, Ishmetov stressed that shifting market conditions have not made reserve management any easier.

"Changing conditions don't produce simpler answers. They make the questions themselves more consequential," he said.

According to Ishmetov, three key questions now confront the Central Bank:

• How much concentration in a single asset can a sovereign balance sheet reasonably withstand?
• How is resilience actually built, rather than simply assumed?
• What does strategic asset allocation mean when the correlations relied on over the past decade no longer hold?

"We have views on all three questions. But we don't have final answers to any of them. I'd rather say that at the start of the forum than pretend by the end that we do," he said.