Big secret for a small campaign

Following the Federal Customs Service (FCS), the Bank of Russia partially restored the publication of data on foreign trade. There are no special discrepancies with the previously made estimates of analysts in the published data: by December 2022, Russian imports recovered almost completely. The publication of foreign trade data of the Central Bank will take place a month later than the old schedule – the meaning of such a restriction is not clear, and some of these features will still be reflected in the additional volatility of the ruble exchange rate.

The data on the foreign trade of the Russian Federation in 2022 was presented by the Federal Customs Service on Monday (see Kommersant for March 14), yesterday the figures on the trade balance were published by the Bank of Russia. Recall that such statistics were closed in March 2022 with very weak and formal explanations after the expansion of sanctions and the reciprocal introduction of emergency capital restrictions on external payments. The absence of such data creates an additional lack of information for market participants, including when they determine their strategy in the foreign exchange market, so the embargo on publications contributed to the additional volatility of the ruble exchange rate.

Breakdown by country data is not published, in addition, trade data will appear with a lag not in a few days, as before, but 40 days after the end of the corresponding period. Accordingly, the first figures for 2023, which became available yesterday, are for January. Recall that the methods of “mirror” estimates tested by analysts in 2022 work quite well – their calculations ended up being close to the official figures. Therefore, de facto, the remaining restrictions do not perform the functions of “protecting the trade partners of the Russian Federation” during parallel imports (the partners themselves talk about their operations), and the contribution to the volatility of the ruble of these restrictions does not even have a conventional meaning and is paid by the Russian economy with virtually no rational motivation.

The data published by the Central Bank confirms the absence of manipulation of this information, which remained closed for several months: the dynamics of 2022 looks exactly like it was described by civil servants in words at the relevant moments. Thus, Russian exports peaked since the start of the military operation in May (142% growth year-on-year in monetary terms), on a monthly basis fell to the levels of 2021 only in September (101.2% year-on-year), and decreased in the fourth quarter from the levels of the previous year by 8%. From the data of the Federal Customs Service and the Central Bank, it is not yet possible to draw unambiguous conclusions about the effectiveness of the price ceiling introduced by the G7 in relation to the supply of oil and petroleum products from the Russian Federation – only the figures for the first quarter, which will become available in May, will allow drawing reasonable conclusions.

Import data suggests that Russian purchases abroad fell sharply (by a third, to 66.5% yoy) only in April – import statistics have been growing since May, in December imports amounted to 99.4% of last year. Without accurate data on the structure of imports, it is pointless to evaluate this as a success or a problem. It should be noted that, in theory, consumer imports may already in 2023 (at least in value terms) be significantly larger than in previous years, and in the future there are some reasons to assume its instability.

January data satisfactorily explain the weakening of the ruble at the beginning of 2023: the balance of trade in goods this month is about $9 billion, these figures are more typical for 2015-2016, the “covid” 2020 and the period up to 2005. Thus, the long-term possibilities of the Russian Federation to increase imports, including parallel ones and from countries outside the G7, are really limited – a negative trade balance in this situation will lead either to a strong and poorly controlled depreciation of the ruble, or to a political decision to change the exchange rate model.

Dmitry Butrin