BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil’s central bank said on Thursday that it cut U.S. dollar and euro holdings in 2009 and increased holdings in other currencies, as major economies continued to struggle with the global crisis.

The bank said that 81.9 percent of the country’s international reserves were denominated in U.S. dollars at the end of 2009 compared to 89.1 percent at the end of 2008. Euro holdings slid to 7 percent from 9.4 percent.
The bank also increased the share of government bonds in its portfolio and the average maturity of its investments nearly halved, the central bank said.
“The crisis has made conservative management become even more conservative,” monetary policy director Aldo Luiz Mendes told a press conference in Brasilia.
The strategy was to hedge against risk both in terms of the currencies and the assets in which it invested nearly $260 billion of its international reserves. The global economy in 2009 was still struggling with a global financial crisis and recessions in major economies.
The central bank boosted the amount of government bonds in its reserves to 89.8 percent from 79.1 percent a year earlier, while the average maturity of the portfolio fell to 1.63 percent last year from 3.04 percent in 2008.
At the same time that it reduced its holdings in U.S. dollars and the euro, the central bank increased its investments in other currencies.
The bank said 3.5 percent of its reserves were held in Canadian dollars, with another 1.9 percent in Australian dollars by the end of last year. It also opted for the British pound as an alternative to the euro, Mendes said.
“They are economies that have performed relatively better than Europe and the United States throughout 2009,” he said.