MOSOW (Sputnik) - Foreign investors, including China, Japan, Russia, and many others, cut their reserves of American debt in November 2018 by $105 billion from a year earlier, to $6.2 trillion, U.S. Treasury Department data released.
The freshly released data from the U.S. Treasury Department indicates that Russia reduced its holdings of American debt by $1.815 billion last November to $12.814 billion from October. Some $3.75 billion were invested into long-term obligations, while $9.1 billion poured into short-term ones.
The three biggest holders of U.S. sovereign debt are China with $1.138 trillion, Japan with $1.036 trillion and Brazil with $311 billion. The data also shows that China, as the largest holder of U.S. debt, cut its holdings to $1.12 trillion, reaching the lowest level since November 2017.
Last year, the U.S. Treasury announced that Russia had left the list of the biggest shareholders of U.S. sovereign debt, having slashed it by 84 percent or $81 billion worth of U.S. treasury noted between March and May 2018.
The timing of the move overlapped with the imposition of a new round of sanctions against United Co. Rusal, a Russian aluminium producer, with Russia’s Central Bank explaining that the decision was part of a plan to diversify holdings.