ECB balance sheet shrinks by 1.5 billion euros

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The balance sheet of the European Central Bank and the euro zone national central banks shrank by 1.482 billion euros (£1.2 billion) to 2.279 trillion euros (£1.88 trillion) between January 1 and January 3, the ECB said on Wednesday.

The period is shorter than the usual week-long interval because the ECB started to include the balance sheet figure of the Latvian central bank into its consolidated financial statement on January 1, when Latvia joined the euro.

Gold holdings of euro zone central banks remained unchanged over the three-day period at 303.156 billion euros, the ECB said.

Net foreign exchange reserves in the Eurosystem of central banks stayed virtually unchanged at 204.1 billion euros, the ECB added.

In a separate statement, the ECB said that the gold holdings of the Eurosystem of central banks fell by 41 billion euros as of December 31, due to quarterly revaluation.

(Reporting by Eva Taylor and Sakari Suoninen)