MOSCOW — Russia’s gold and foreign currency reserves were $151.9 billion on September 9, $1.5 billion up from a week earlier, the central bank of Russia reported.

The reserves increased for the third straight week, having added $3.8 billion, or 2.6 percent, over this period. They have been rising particularly quickly over the past ten days. From August 19 to 26, the reserves increased by a mere $150 million, while they climbed $2.2 billion from August 26 to September 2.

This is due to the fact that Russia completed early debt payments to the Paris Club of creditors in late August, and to active purchases of dollars on the Russian forex market at the end of last month. The reserves are at their all-time high now, $100 million above the previous record on July 1, 2005.

Gold and foreign currency reserves are highly liquid financial assets controlled by the central bank and the finance ministry. They consist of monetary gold, special drawing rights, the reserve position in the International Monetary Fund, and foreign currency.

Russia has the world’s fifth largest gold and foreign currency stocks after Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea.