UPDATE 2: Russia cbank sees no pressure on ruble from finmin ops

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MOSCOW, Jan 26 (PRIME) -- The Russian central bank does not expect speculative pressure on the ruble from Finance Ministry's operations on the market, a spokesperson for the central bank said on Thursday.

“Taking into account the estimate of additional 2017 energy revenue preliminarily announced by the Finance Ministry and an assumed evenness of operations on the foreign currency market, the operations on the foreign currency market by the Finance Ministry should not significantly affect the situation,” the person said.

“Taking into account the fact that the exchange rate dynamics depends on many various factors of both internal and external nature, there are no preconditions for the formation of speculative moods of market players.”

But the ruble fell through a psychologically important threshold of 60 per dollar, losing 45 kopecks against the U.S. currency at 13.21 Moscow time. It lost 32 kopecks against the euro to 64.29. On Thursday, the ruble fell to its lowest of 60.0175 per dollar since January 19.

The central bank official also said that the ministry’s operations do not contradict free float of the ruble. “The practice of operations on the foreign currency market in order to replenish/spend sovereign funds does not contradict the concept of the floating exchange rate regime and is successfully implemented in other states which have sovereign funds.”

The Finance Ministry plans to start buying or selling foreign currency on the local market from February through the central bank, the ministry said on Wednesday.

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