(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Georgy Bovt, special to RBTH – December 19, 2014) After becoming two times poorer in real terms since the beginning of the year due to the collapse of the ruble, Russians could well have taken to the streets to protest against the government’s economic policies. Why hasn’t that happened? And why is mass […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – December 17, 2014) The ruble’s crash on December 15 from RUB53 to nearly RUB80 vs the dollar has caused many commentators to compare this crisis to Russia’s financial collapse in 1998. Is Russia really going into a full-scale meltdown for the fourth time in two decades? Crashing oil prices […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Howard Amos, Ivan Nechepurenko – December 17, 2014) While the ruble pinballed erratically between 58 and 80 per U.S. dollar on Tuesday, making headlines around the world, Russia’s state-run media have attempted to take a soft and conciliatory stance on the home currency’s woes. A news bullet by state-owned Channel One aired at 6 p.m. […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – December 17, 2014) Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev called the ruble undervalued at a meeting on December 17 with the top officials of the government, the central bank and heads of Russia’s largest exporters. He said that regulation of the currency market would remain based on market principles, but the presence […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – November 19, 2014) After controlling the ruble-dollar exchange rate for more than two decades to ease the pain of the transition to a free market, on October 9 the Russia’s central bank finally let the ruble go. The Russian currency is now a fully floating currency, but it is […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Alexei Lossan, RBTH – November 17, 2014) Since the beginning of 2014 the value of the ruble has fallen by about 50 percent against the dollar and the euro, a slide most analysts attribute to low oil prices. In the end, Russia’s Central Bank decided to bring forward plans to let the ruble […]
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(Business New Europe – November 7, 2014) Oil prices fell below $80 for the first time in four years on November 5 after Saudi Arabia and other Opec members refused to cut production. But economists say despite the large movements in the oil price, the de facto freely floating ruble will mitigate much of the economic pain to Russia. “The […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, October 27, 2014) Fourty-five per cent of Russian residents are now concerned about an increase in the dollar rate – this indicator has increased significantly compared with last year, when only 26 per cent of respondents worried about this, Levada Centre [independent research organization] sociologists have told Interfax. At the same time, 52 per cent of Russian […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Howard Amos – October 18, 2014) As the Russian ruble plunges to repeated record lows and the Central Bank ramps up market interventions to defend it, few want to mention Aug. 17, 1998. On that day, amid budgetary chaos and dwindling foreign currency reserves, Russia abandoned its support of the ruble and announced a default, […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Maria Karnaukh, special to RBTH – October 17, 2014) Falling oil prices – and the falling ruble – have different consequences for the budget and consumers Oil prices – and the Russian ruble – continue to sink. As of Oct. 16, the price of a barrel of Brent crude, the standard on which […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Delphine d’Amora – October 16, 2014) Consumer confidence in Russia’s financial system is falling, with half of Russians saying they don’t trust banks and are using such services less, in a troubling signal for a system under pressure from Western sanctions and more sensitive than ever to outflows of depositors, a recent study showed. In […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – October 16, 2014) The ruble dropped to another historic low on October 15, passing the RUB41 per dollar mark in morning trading, but analysts said Russia’s central bank is not panicking because ruble weakness is bolstering manufacturing growth and budget revenues. “The CBR is not panicking either in terms of the scale of its […]
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(Interfax – October 12, 2014) Over half of Russians (61 percent) admit that fluctuations in the exchange rate of the ruble have a certain impact on their lives while 13 percent don’t notice any impact, a Public Opinion fund poll indicates. In the opinion of 62 percent of respondents a stronger ruble is better for the Russian economy and only […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Vladimir Kuznetsov – October 13, 2014) The ruble extended its longest losing streak in more than a year as $6 billion of Russian currency interventions failed to stem the depreciation amid tumbling oil prices. The ruble weakened 0.6 percent versus the dollar-euro basket to 45.3423 by 5:15 p.m. in Moscow, taking its seven-day decline to 2.3 […]
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(Blooomberg – bloomberg.com – Ye Xie and Elena Popina – October 9, 2014) As Russia starts burning through foreign reserves in a bid to defend the ruble, flashbacks to the country’s 1998 devaluation and default are inevitable. While the government is in a much stronger position today to fend off the crisis than it was then — foreign reserves are […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – October 9, 2014) The ruble dropped on October 8 by a further 24 kopecks to the dollar and 29 kopecks to the euro. In order to support the exchange rate, the central bank was estimated by market participants to have sold more than $1.1bn, at least four times raising the upper threshold of the […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Vladimir Kuznetsov – October 7, 2014) Russia’s central bank spent as much as $1.75 billion to prop up the ruble over the last two trading days, its biggest market intervention since President Vladimir Putin’s incursion into Ukraine in March. Russia’s central bank spent the equivalent of $980 million to shore up the ruble on Oct. 3, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 6, 2014) Year-on-year inflation hit 8 percent in September, driven up by the plummeting value of the ruble and Russia’s bans on many food imports from the United States and European Union, according to data from state statistics service, Rosstat. Rising food prices were the main driver, climbing 11.4 percent year-on-year in September, up […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 29, 2014) The ruble sunk to a record low against the Central Bank’s currency basket Monday, continuing a steady slide that has seen it lose over 15 percent of its value this year. The Russian currency dropped during morning trading and was worth 44.37 against the euro-dollar basket shortly after midday, its lowest level […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – INVISIBLE HAND – Liam Halligan in London, Editor-at-Large of BNE – May 28, 2014) The St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), now in its 18th year, was less well attended than usual. The absence of various US and Western Europe CEOs, responding to pressure from their governments following sanctions on Russia, was heavily commented […]
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BERLIN, April 10 (RIA Novosti) – The outflow of capital from Russia is not tied to events in Ukraine, but to fluctuations in the exchange rate of the ruble, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said Thursday. “The outflow of capital is not mainly tied to Crimea, the outflow, of course, is connected with the events that happened in […]
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MOSCOW, March 25 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov gave a boost to the ruble Tuesday by raising expectations the Russian currency would strengthen once the current foreign and domestic economic situations stabilize. The ruble strengthened by 46 kopecks (1.3 percent) against the dollar and by 76 kopecks (1.5 percent) against the euro Tuesday on the news. “If […]
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(RIA Novosti – February 27, 2014) Steady weakening of the ruble will contribute to inflation, but may also boost revenues to the Russian treasury by $10 billion, a senior finance official has predicted, according to a report in a daily newspaper Thursday. Since the federal budget for 2014 assumed an exchange rate of 33 rubles to the dollar, a weaker […]
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SYDNEY. Feb 23 (Interfax) – The ruble’s weakening observed since the start of the year is due to slowdown in Russia’s economic growth in the first place, not over the curtailment of the Quantitative Easing (QE) program by the United States, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters. “What happened to the ruble’s exchange rate at the start of the […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Kira Egorova, Anna Sorokina, RBTH – February 19, 2014) On Wednesday morning, the ruble slid to a five-year low against the dollar on trading in the Moscow Exchange. Experts have tried to reassure investors arguing, that the ruble will gain ground soon The Euro also reached an all-time high against the Russian national […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – February 18, 2014) Russia’s promise to release the next payment of a promised $15 billion loan to the government of Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych failed to help the country’s hryvnia currency, which fell by up to 1.6 percent against the dollar on Tuesday. Monday’s announcement by Finance Minister Anton Siluanov that Moscow […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Natalia Antonova, Nathan Gray – February 5, 2014) Following the weakening of the ruble, Moscow residents both foreign and local are bracing themselves in expectation of higher prices and general market instability. Yet according to the experts, it is too soon to tell whether or not the currency’s present state will have a lasting impact […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Delphine d’Amora – January 31, 2014) It has been a punishing week for the ruble, and for many, the ghosts of previous crises feel all too near. Despite the Central Bank pouring more than $1 billion a day into propping it up, the Russian currency fell 6 percent against the dollar and reached an all-time […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Nathan Gray – January 28, 2014) The rapidly depreciating ruble recovered slightly on Tuesday, after recording a five-year low against the euro of 47.50 on Monday. On Tuesday afternoon, the Central Bank indicated a rate of 47.37 against the euro, and 40.36 against the weighted currency basket of dollars and euros. The ruble’s managed decline […]
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MOSCOW, January 28 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian ruble and other emerging market currencies are weakening because of the growing strength of the dollar and the euro, the head of Russia’s central bank said late Monday. Elvira Nabiullina said in a television interview on Channel One that there were no intrinsic problems with the ruble, which has slid to historic […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – January 21, 2014) In a country like Russia, where a fair share of consumer goods come from abroad, the government’s efforts to move to a more flexible exchange rate for the domestic currency could rattle retailers and restaurants big time. Real estate brokers and others dealing in big-ticket items are also concerned. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – January 22, 2014) Russians should not keep their savings in rubles, as the currency is likely to depreciate, the head of the Banking Institute at the Higher School of Economics Vasily Solodkov said. “From now on, ruble exchange rate fluctuations against dollar and euro will be far more significant,” newspaper Argumenty i Fakty quoted Solodkov […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Vladimir Kuznetsov – January 8, 2014) The ruble strengthened after the resumption of trading in Moscow as oil gained and investors bet next month’s Winter Olympics will support Russia’s currency. The ruble appreciated 0.4 percent to 38.4873 against Bank Rossii’s target basket of dollars and euros by 2:03 p.m. in Moscow. The yield on Russian government […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Viktor Kuzmin, special to RBTH – December 18, 2013) The ruble’s value decreased 11 percent in 2013, making it a good time for foreign investors to invest or spend more money in Russia. With the Russian ruble devalued by 11 percent, experts say there are opportunities for foreign investors to earn money on […]
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MOSCOW, November 28 (RIA Novosti) Russia’s Economy Ministry said Thursday that the ruble could depreciate further in 2013, weakening the currency to levels not seen for more than four years. The slide has come despite high oil prices and the ongoing tax collection period, which would normally be expected to increase demand for the domestic currency as businesses pay […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 22 (Interfax) – The percentage of Russians who have savings has hit its highest point in the past few years. The ruble remains the most popular currency of savings, but Russians do not want to abandon the dollar or euro either, sociologists said. Some 22% of the respondents said they had savings in fall 2008. The percentage grew […]
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MOSCOW, November 5 (RIA Novosti) The Russian Central Bank launched a public competition Tuesday to find a symbol that will represent the ruble alongside other major world currencies. For the next month, visitors to the Central Bank’s website can vote for one of five variations on the letter R in both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets. “Written symbols for […]
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(Interfax – STRELNA, September 4, 2013) Former Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who currently chairs the Committee on Civil Initiatives, does not anticipate any serious changes to the ruble’s real exchange rate in the next three to four years. “I don’t expect any major changes in the fate of the ruble. If you look at the official forecast, many might […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 19, 2013) Russians have paid attention to the ruble’s depreciation, which began in late June, but cannot explain its causes, sociologists said. Thirty-nine percent of the respondents polled in 130 towns and cities in 42 regions in July said they had noticed the ruble’s slide. The change was especially obvious to residents of cities with a […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, August 8, 2013) At the present time, there are approximately 30 territorial disputes among Russia’s federal subjects, a situation that makes changing borders anywhere a such an extremely dangerous proposition that one Moscow commentator calls these conflicts “a slow acting bomb under Russian sovereignty” as a whole. Indeed, Ruslan Gorevoy argues in […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 30, 2013) The majority of Russians deems ruble devaluation possible and anticipates a threat to family budgets, Romir Holding said. Approximately two-thirds of the 1,000 respondents (64%) polled in seven federal districts in July said ruble devaluation was possible and 13% of them argued that it was inevitable. Twenty-five percent did not expect a crisis, and […]
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(Pravda.ru – Margarita Troitsyna – July 24, 2013) On July 24, 1993, 20 years ago, the Central Bank of Russia announced the withdrawal of Soviet banknotes from circulation. From that day, Soviet cash was no longer valid on the territory of Russia. The reform was carried out to curb inflation in the country, but it caused huge panic in the […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 9, 2013) The Russian ruble is not in danger of any “almighty devaluation” and Russian citizens have no reason to begin buying large amounts of foreign currency, Ruslan Grinberg, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Economics Institute, said. “Our world is sinking into total uncertainty. It is a guarantee for high oil prices. In this […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – June 24, 2013) Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said that there are no plans to devalue the ruble, despite claims he made last Tuesday that a weaker currency could boost revenues and growth. “Devaluation will not be carried out in Russia under any circumstances,” Siluanov said Sunday during an interview with Central Television NTV, adding that […]
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(RIA Novosti – ST. PETERSBURG, June 20, 2013) The Russian government’s plans to weaken the ruble in a bid to stimulate faltering economic growth is unlikely to yield results, Central Bank First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev said on Thursday. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov on Monday said the government is looking for measures to stimulate economic growth in Russia, including […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – February 18, 2013) Leaders of the Group of 20 said Saturday that global economic growth remains weak despite government measures, but they agreed to avoid currency wars intended to stimulate the economy by devaluing their money. A meeting of the group’s finance ministers and central bankers was held in Moscow for the […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Simon Kennedy & Scott Rose – January 16, 2013) The world is on the brink of a fresh “currency war,” Russia warned, as European policy makers joined Japan in bemoaning the economic cost of rising exchange rates. “Japan is weakening the yen and other countries may follow,” Alexei Ulyukayev, first deputy chairman of Russia’s central bank, […]
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