The Ministry of Finance will resume buying foreign currency on the domestic market – Kommersant

Ministry of Finance introduced monthly forecast for additional oil and gas budget revenues. As the ministry expects, in August they will amount to 73.2 billion rubles. In July this year, the budget received 32.7 billion rubles. less than the expected monthly volume of oil and gas revenues. Thus, the total amount of funds allocated for the purchase of foreign currency and gold will amount to 40.5 billion rubles. This will be the first currency purchase under the fiscal rule since January 2022.

According to the federal agency, transactions for the purchase of foreign currency on the domestic market will be carried out from August 7, 2023 to September 6, 2023. The daily volume of purchases of yuan and gold will amount to 1.8 billion rubles.

The ruble did not react to the decision to resume purchases of foreign currency and continues to strengthen at the same pace: for example, the yuan depreciates to 12.99 rubles, and the dollar to 93.54 rubles, follows from the data of the Moscow Exchange.

The version of the budget rule that was in effect earlier assumed the purchase of foreign currency in the NWF at prices for Urals oil above the base price. After the introduction of Western sanctions, most of the funds accumulated in the NWF in unfriendly currencies were frozen. The budget rule in its previous form was suspended and launched in a new format. Now the Ministry of Finance, with the help of the Central Bank, buys yuan and gold from the NWF in situations.

Also the Ministry of Finance today informedthat the government may reduce the use of NWF funds “taking into account the assessment of the situation in the economy and the financial system.” We are talking about funds to finance additional budget expenditures for the transition period 2023-2024.

As of July 1, the volume of the NWF was 12.67 trillion rubles. Over the month, the size of the fund increased by 317 billion rubles, but at the same time decreased by $7.5 billion in dollar terms.

Alexander Kislov