Central banks in lower-income countries typically have experienced higher growth in the value of their foreign exchange reserve portfolios during the past 12 months compared with those in higher-income countries. More broadly, central banks appear to have weathered the financial stresses induced by Covid-19 lockdowns, with most of those surveyed in Reserve Benchmarks 2020 reporting positive returns in the wake of the crisis.

Of the 34 central banks that provided a figure for the annualised