Is it worth waiting for new currency restrictions?

The Finance Ministry advocates tougher currency control measures than the Bank of Russia, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on September 1 during a speech at the conference “10 Years of the Mega-Regulator: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.” The Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank are looking for consensus on this issue, Siluanov said. According to the chairman of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, there should be such measures of currency control that are mirror, reciprocal in relation to anti-Russian restrictions.

Many fear an outflow of capital, that is, a bias in the preferences of economic agents in favor of savings in foreign assets, including foreign currency deposits within Russia, Nabiullina pointed out. According to her, currency restrictions should not create difficulties for economic entities that find it difficult to find ways to pay and conduct export activities. “The measure to return the mandatory sale of foreign exchange earnings may not give the effect that is expected from it,” the chairman of the Central Bank said later on the sidelines. This is due to the fact that exporters already receive a significant part of the proceeds in rubles. In addition, if a company sells part of its foreign exchange earnings, it “can already buy it back the next day, which means that the balance of supply and demand does not change in the market.”