The Wandering Trillion

Due to the closure of customs statistics, estimates of almost any figure in the Russian balance of payments remain unreliable – the reconciliation of “mirror” estimates of foreign trade operations is still inaccurate. Nevertheless, the publication by the Bank of Russia of individual data on the balance of payments of the Russian Federation for 2022 (more precisely, for the fourth quarter of the last year) was expected by many. The question of why the ruble weakened in December without external causes is on the market for many, primarily because there is no answer, and therefore, the situation may repeat itself. Sometimes you have to write about what is not there, and this is exactly the case – the data of the Central Bank on foreign trade do not allow us to say anything about the reasons for the weak ruble in December, but they speak more definitely about the problems of the end of 2023.

The main figure in the Central Bank’s summary of the balance of payments is data on imports, and not on exports, as was assumed until the last moment. Russian exports in the fourth quarter amounted to $144.7 billion, which is almost the same as in the third quarter ($152 billion), which is more or less predictable and suggests that the main announced reason for the closure of customs statistics by the Federal Customs Service is the unwillingness to demonstrate the real scale reorientation after the start of the military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine of oil exports to the East – does not work. Analysts guessed this figure quite accurately, including the scale of the December decline in prices for such supplies. The figure of imports turned out to be unguessed – it is $98.9 billion for the quarter, minus 9% compared to the same period in 2021, and this, as, for example, the authors of the Solid Figures TG channel note, is about $20 billion more than what analysts expected the Bank of Russia itself back in October in its own forecast.

It is possible to explain in some detail why none of the existing explanations for the increase in imports is very satisfactory, but this is not the problem. If the customs statistics (and the Central Bank really cannot have any other source) do not lie, the trade balance has a chance to reset to zero in the fall-winter of 2023. Considering that the data of the Bank of Russia on all components of the balance of payments are very ordinary, they do not contain large “leaps” of data – either the ruble is doomed to devaluation, or a “wandering trillion” in government spending statistics (see “Kommersant” dated January 23) and December imports are related. It is easier to assume that the statistics are unreliable: it is hard to believe in hidden December state purchases of anything worth $10-15 billion. What could it be, who would the Russian Federation sell so much of it, and why would the Central Bank then show it to everyone? And all this is not a theoretical problem: the December ruble is obviously the result of circulating rumors, and not someone’s solid knowledge or conscious manipulation. There are no clear statistics – there is a lot of exchange rate volatility; everyone who does not earn on it, pays for it.