REUTERS
Experts from Higher School of Economics project that Russian companies and banks may face a shortage of currency in the domestic market in the coming months.
The policy of the Central Bank, according to the experts, was not aimed to stimulate the exporters, but to repay foreign debts and withdraw capital abroad, Russian information agency RBC reported with reference to the university’s bulletin, rbc.ru reports.
"The decline in oil prices, the decision of the Bank of Russia and the U.S. Federal Reserve on interest rates led to another wave of devaluation of the ruble. In the coming months, Russian companies and banks may face a shortage of currency in the domestic market," reads the bulletin of Higher School of Economics for the July 23 - August 4 period.
The activity of the Bank of Russia in May was aimed rather at weakening the national currency by buying $200 million a day from May 14. A total of $10 billion was purchased, which significantly exceeded the inflow of foreign currency under current operations and increased pressure on the ruble, according to the authors.
It is also reported that the Bank of Russia did not let the depreciation reaching the level of RUR 65 per dollar to compensate for the decline in oil prices and replenish the budget to the level of late 2014 - early 2015.
On July 28, the Bank of Russia stopped buying currency in an effort to set the currency corridor in the range of RUR 50-60 per dollar, and thereby prevent the buying of hard currency and retaining of earnings by exporters. However, the following U.S. Federal Reserve’s statement about its plans to keep its rate unchanged, as well as a decision of the Bank of Russia about key interest rate reduction resulted in the dollar exchange rate falling below RUR 62.
Experts predict that the Bank of Russia may face new challenges in August-September on the backdrop of the economic crisis. External debt repayments (with the peak reaching $14 billion in September) and the accumulation of foreign currency by companies and banks will force the regulator to let the ruble's exchange rate float freely, or to meet the demand for foreign currency at the expense of the accumulated reserves.