Bank of Russia’s comment on fiscal rule-based operations
In accordance with the mechanism announced on 19 March 2020, over the period through 30 September 2020 the Bank of Russia will carry out operations to sell foreign currency earned from the sale of Sberbank’s equity only if the Urals crude price declines below USD 25 per barrel. Taking into account price levels in the oil market, the Bank of Russia has not conducted these operations since 12 May 2020.
After the effective period of this mechanism expires and provided that the global oil market maintains its current trends in August—September, the Bank of Russia is going to offset the sales of foreign currency related to the Sberbank deal and the fiscal rule-based foreign currency purchases suspended in 2018 and in March—April 2020, as well as the proactive foreign currency sales carried out under the fiscal rule in March—April. The final net amount of foreign currency estimated at 185.4 billion rubles (in ruble equivalent) will be evenly sold in the domestic FX market over the course of 2020 Q4 in addition to regular fiscal rule-based operations.
Given the amount of these extra operations and that they will be conducted uniformly, this will not have any significant impact on the situation in the domestic FX market.
Forecast foreign currency sales in October—December 2020 in addition to standard fiscal rule-based operations (in ruble equivalent), billion rubles
| Foreign currency earned from the sale of the equity stake in Sberbank | 2,139.4 |
|
-504.2 |
|
-126.0 |
|
-1,323.8 |
| Balance to be sold in October—December 2020 | 185.4 |