Expansion Without Borders

A source at the Bank of Russia said Thursday RBC on January 11 Corridor fluctuations bi-currency basket has expanded, not specifying the limits of expansion. Note that the dollar Bank on 12 January was 30.53 rubles., Euro - 41.13 rub. Thus, the value of the currency basket was 35.3 rubles. Over the past two months, the cost of the basket has increased by almost 5 now. According to the analyst of the investment department of the bank VTB 24 Stanislav Kleshchev, expansion plans for Central Corridor reflects on the smooth decline of the ruble. "Last year was every reason to believe that the central bank will continue and further weakening of the ruble and try to make it blurred," - said Stanislav Kleshchev. Earlier, First Deputy Chairman of Bank of Russia Alexei Ulyukayev reported that the Central Bank does not intend to abolish the border fluctuations bi-currency basket. "We are not going to let the ruble float freely, but will expand a corridor of permissible fluctuations bi-currency basket," - said Mr. Ulyukaev. According to him, the corridor is wide enough, it will be "semi-free" cruise. In this case, the Central Bank tries to support the ruble, increasing net sales of dollars and euros. In December, according to the Bank of Russia, net sales totaled 57.4 billion dollars, which is almost two times higher than the November figure. Net selling of European currencies in December has grown fourfold, to 12.6 billion euros. Overall, in the fourth quarter of last year's net sales by the Bank of Russia amounted to 126.1 billion dollars and almost 19 billion euros. Recall that the sales growth rate of currency by the Central Bank started to increase since September: in August, net sales amounted to only $ 31 million, in September has 17.2 billion dollars, and in October of 38.6 billion dollars to the euro was observed a similar situation. "The controller increases the sales volume of currency to curb" market pressure "on the ruble," said Stanislav Kleshchev. According to him, or devalued the ruble would be much faster. "In turn, if the Bank does not extend the corridor against the currency basket, sales of foreign currency would have been much more" - says Mr. mites. Note also that according to some analysts, because the scale of foreign exchange interventions of the Central Bank has recently been considerable, reduced Russia's international reserves. In the second half of 2008, they decreased by 23% (nearly 131 billion dollars) and accounted for 438.2 billion dollars is 8% (40 billion U.S. dollars) less than in early 2008. According to the Head of analytical department of the IR "Financial Bridge" Alexei Serov, until the situation is not critical: Russia has enough reserves.