Czech central bank aims to increase holdings of US equities, policymaker says
Adds details on reserves, more Kubicek quotes in paragraphs 3-9
PRAGUE, Oct 17 (Reuters) -The Czech National Bank will lift the share of U.S. stocks in its equity holdings as part of a wider strategy of diversifying foreign reserves, board member Jan Kubicek was quoted as saying on Thursday.
"Currently, U.S. equities represent about 30% of our equity portfolio, but we are planning to raise this share by 2029. As a target, the share of U.S. equities should reach almost 50%," Kubicek said in an excerpt of an interview with news website Seznam Zpravy.
The central bank's international reserves stood at 138.1 billion euros ($149.45 billion), or about 44% of gross domestic product, at the end of September.
The bank built up large reserves between 2013-2017, when it intervened to keep the crown weak as part of loose monetary policy and bought up euros in the market.
Policymakers, with a goal of boosting bank profitability, have set a strategy to diversify reserves, including lifting the number of equities held and buying more gold.
On equities, the plan is to lift their share in reserves to 30% from 20%.
"We plan to reach the target share within five years, which will allow us to avoid speculation about market timing," Kubicek said. "We are not doing it in a way that we would say now that equities are cheap, we will buy them, or vice versa."
Kubicek said currently about half of the equity portfolio is in European markets. He added the shift was being guided by the relative size of GDP, while before it was based more on currency composition.
"The U.S. market is very significant and we want to reflect this fact more in our portfolio," he told the news website.
($1 = 0.9240 euros)
Reporting by Jason Hovet
Editing by Christina Fincher
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