Gref expects the dollar exchange rate to stabilize to 90 rubles

Sberbank expects the ruble to stabilize and the dollar to return to around 90 rubles. Chairman of the Board of the State Bank German Gref told reporters about this on the sidelines of Russian Energy Week.

“In general, we expect a gradual stabilization of the exchange rate and a depreciation of the dollar at this stage somewhere around 90 rubles/$. In the future, if the parameters of our export goods remain the same, most likely, some further strengthening is possible. The normal fundamental rate today is 85-90 rubles/$,” – leads his words TASS.

The decision to oblige a number of exporters to sell foreign currency will not have a fundamental impact on the ruble exchange rate, Gref believes, since it is fundamentally determined by market factors.” The normal value of the exchange rate today, according to his assessment, is 85-90 rubles/$.

On October 11, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the mandatory sale of proceeds in foreign currency received by individual Russian exporters under foreign trade agreements. The goal is to create long-term conditions for increasing the transparency and predictability of the foreign exchange market, as well as reducing the possibility of currency speculation, explained First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov.

The decree defines a specific list of 43 exporters related to the sectors of the fuel and energy complex, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, chemical and forestry industries, and grain farming, which will be affected by these measures. For them, mandatory repatriation and sale of foreign currency earnings on the Russian market are introduced for six months.

How wrote Earlier, Vedomosti, the Central Bank identified five factors that help stabilize the ruble exchange rate. These include an increase in the rate, a refusal to purchase foreign currency on the domestic market within the framework of the budget rule, the development of a mechanism for converting national currencies used in external payments, a new export duty linked to the exchange rate, as well as sales of currency as part of mirroring investments from the National Welfare Fund.

The Board of Directors of the Central Bank at a meeting on September 15 raised the key rate by 1 percentage point to 13%. This was the third consecutive increase in a month and a half: first, the Central Bank raised the rate at a meeting on July 21 by 1 percentage point to 8.5%, and then unscheduledly increased the rate on August 15 immediately to 12%.