Report: Economy minister says ruble rate returns to normal level

MOSCOW, Aug 2 (PRIME) -- The ruble’s rate has returned to normal and its fluctuations will be limited, Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin said in an interview to Rossiya 24 television channel broadcast on Wednesday.

“We see that the ruble has returned to the level that we believe normal in the current situation. That is why no one should expect any rapid and dramatic changes in it. The ruble will fluctuate, but it will fluctuate in a limited range,” he said.

The ruble rate is floating and reacts to changes, but the policy of the central bank and the government – including inflation targeting, purchases of foreign currency by the Finance Ministry, and new budget rules – focuses on calming volatility, he said.

Speaking about the impact of the new U.S. sanctions on outflow of the private capital from Russia, he said that foreign investors who would like to sell their Russian assets have already done that.

“We actually see that the capital inflow we had at the beginning of the year happened via two channels. The first channel is an inflow of foreign money into the OFZ bond market, the second is active borrowing from external markets by Russian companies. We had a serious inflow of capital, which resulted in a slight over-strengthening of the ruble…Now, the inflow of capital has somewhat slowed down,” he said.

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