Kazinform reports that the Committee on precious metals and gemstones of Uzbekistan Ministry of Finance from January 1, 2004, will be reorganised to the Agency for precious metals. This reorganisation will take place according to the order of the republic’s president about precious metals buying, keeping and realisation.

New agency will be controlled by the Central Bank, its functions will be to organise the control over precious metals and gemstones mining, production, processing and realisation in Uzbekistan. The process of reorganisation is a step forward in gold and currency reserves passing to the Central Bank. Now these reserves amount to about $1,4 bln.