(Adds detail on liquid assets, shares revaluation)
April 5 (Reuters) - Russia's National Wealth Fund (NWF)
stood at the equivalent of $154.5 billion as of April 1,
Russia's finance ministry said on Wednesday, up from $147.2
billion on March 1.
The finance ministry said the sovereign wealth fund was
equivalent in value to 7.9% of Russia's gross domestic product
(GDP), up from 7.4% a month earlier.
The NWF is a rainy-day fund built up from years of profits
on oil and gas exports.
The finance ministry said it had spent 137.1 billion roubles
($1.72 billion) of yuan and gold from the NWF during March to
cover the government's budget deficit.
The growth in the fund's reserves is largely due to a
revaluation of state-owned lender Sberbank's shares -
to 2.42 trillion roubles from 1.92 trillion roubles - and flag
carrier Aeroflot's shares to 74.5 billion roubles from
66.8 billion roubles, data showed.
The fund's liquid assets amounted to 6.71 trillion
roubles, or 4.5% of GDP as of the beginning of April, compared
with 6.45 trillion roubles, or 4.3% of GDP a month earlier.
The finance ministry spent 2.97 trillion roubles from
the NWF to cover its budget deficit in 2022.
In the first quarter, the finance ministry said exchange
rate differences on foreign currency denominated assets and the
revaluation of the cost of gold had added 927 billion roubles.
($1 = 79.4950 roubles)
(Reporting by Darya Korsunskaya; Writing by Jake Cordell;
Editing by Kevin Liffey and Mark Porter)
