The decline followed a marked €4.164 bln drop in March, when FX transactions, mostly related to a maturing £500 million bond, reduced the international reserves by almost €1.2 bln, and redemptions of central bank swap contracts related to the phasing out of retail FX loans cut them by a further €2.9 bln. 

The MNB said earlier that it would reduce the level of international reserves as a matter of policy, simultaneous to a decline in Hungaryʼs short-term external debt. Measures that have shifted the financing of government debt to local banks and domestic retail investors, as well as a declining share of FX state debt and the conversion of retail FX loans into forints also support the reduction.