And the bank said in a statement on Wednesday night that, “From August 10, 2023 until the end of 2023, the Central Bank decided to stop buying foreign currencies in the local market in order to reduce the fluctuations of financial markets.”
Many financial experts expected the bank to take this decision.
This decision means that the bank will suspend the rule that requires Russia to buy or sell foreign currencies held in its national wealth fund in order to balance its federal budget in light of fluctuations in the revenues from its oil and gas exports.
This decision comes at a time when the ruble has fallen in recent weeks, which has raised concerns among many citizens about the future of their standard of living.
On Thursday morning, the price of the national currency reached 107 rubles against the euro and 97 rubles against the dollar, at the lowest level of the ruble since the gendarmerie it reached in the first weeks following the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
The Central Bank of Russia, which intervenes in the financial market on behalf of the Ministry of Finance, resumed in mid-January its operations to buy and sell foreign currencies in the national exchange market.
The resumption of these operations came nearly ten months after they were suspended in the wake of the wide-ranging Western sanctions imposed on Moscow in the aftermath of the war.
Until the start of the war in February 2022, Russia was mainly using the dollar and the euro to balance its budget, but today it is seeking to rely on the Chinese yuan in order to reduce its financial dependence on the United States.
In its statement, the Russian Central Bank said that a possible decision on the “resumption” of the central bank’s operations “will be taken in light of the real situation in the financial markets.”
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