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MOSCOW, Sep 5 Russian exporters' balances in rupiah are negligible compared to export volumes and are gradually declining, Bank of Russia Deputy Governor Alexei Zabotkin told reporters.
“The scale of the rupee that is held in the accounts of Russian exporters to India is insignificant in relation to the volume of exports and is gradually declining,” he said on the sidelines of a forum dedicated to digital finance.
The head of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, Elvira Nabiullina, also said in June that the scale of the revenue accumulated by Russian companies in rupees is small, if measured as a share in the entire volume of foreign exchange revenue.
At the end of August, the ex-head of the Otkritie Bank, Mikhail Zadornov, wrote in an opinion column for RBC that the reason for the weakening of the ruble was problems with the conversion of rupees that Russian oil companies received from exports to India.
However, the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation commented on this issue in such a way that statements that problems with the conversion of rupees caused the weakening of the ruble “do not reflect the real state of affairs”: oil companies return most of the foreign exchange earnings regardless of the currency of payment, and delays are not systemic.
Earlier, the agency also reported that the trade turnover between Russia and India increased by 2.9 times in the last six months, to $33.5 billion. At the same time, India's trade deficit with Russia for the first half of the year expanded 3.3 times compared to the same period last year – up to $29.6 billion.
