Fin Ministry to buy 3 bln rbl of foreign currency daily Mar 7–Apr 6

MOSCOW, Mar 3 (PRIME) -- The Russian Finance Ministry will allocate 3.2 billion rubles daily for foreign currency purchases from the market from March 7 till April 6, according to data published on Friday.

“The amount of money allocated for the purchase of foreign currency on the domestic foreign currency market will total 70.5 billion rubles in the period from March 7 till April 6, 2016. Therefore, the daily amount of purchases of foreign currency will be equivalent to 3.2 billion rubles,” the ministry said.

The ministry forecasts windfall budget revenue from oil and gas sales to amount to 91.9 billion rubles in March but it will spend less on foreign currency purchases because the real additional income in February fell short of the ministry’s estimates due to lower oil exports and a higher ruble rate than expected.

The difference between the Finance Ministry’s windfall oil and gas income estimate and the real income amounted 21.4 billion rubles.

(58.4067 rubles – U.S. $1)

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