Cbank buys 3.4 bln rbl foreign currency for fin ministry on Oct 6

MOSCOW, Oct 9 (PRIME) -- Russia’s central bank bought 3.4 billion rubles worth of foreign currency with settlement on October 6 on the domestic market for the Finance Ministry, according to documents seen by PRIME on Monday.

In February, the ministry said it entered the currency market to minimize dependence of the ruble rate on oil prices. The ministry wanted to use additional oil and gas revenue of the budget and assured the influence on the ruble quotations would be minimal.

From September 7 through October 5, the ministry spent 71.6 billion rubles on foreign currency purchases with daily acquisitions at 3.4 billion rubles. It said it will buy 3.5 billion rubles worth of foreign currency daily, or a total of 76 billion rubles, from October 6 through November 7.

The central bank said that the real volume of operations may differ from the planned amount due to differences in exchange rates and to rounding up or down.

(57.7612 rubles – U.S. $1)

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