BEIJING, June 2 (Reuters) - The Iranian central bank has announced that it will sell 45 billion euros from its foreign exchange reserves to buy dollars and gold, China’s official Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday, citing unspecified Iranian media reports.

Xinhua said that the sales would be conducted in three stages and that the first had already begun, citing unnamed sources.

It also said that other Gulf states had also started cutting their euro holdings. (Reporting by Michael Wei and Simon Rabinovitch; Editing by Neil Fullick)