MOSCOW, September 28 It is necessary to discuss various instruments of currency control, including temporary ones, otherwise openness will have to be constantly paid for with an increased key rate, the minister said economic development of the Russian Federation Maxim Reshetnikov, speaking at a session of the Moscow Financial Forum.
“It seems to me that we need to build a more complex system. After all, even the Central Bank, colleagues of Elvira Sakhipzadovna (Nabiullina — ed.) admit that it is possible to limit the movement of capital for a temporary period. So we are not saying forever — let's just try some new tools , otherwise we will have to constantly pay a higher rate for openness,” Reshetnikov said.
Reshetnikov recalled that when the process of weakening the ruble began, at the end of July — beginning of August, Russia's balance of payments was quite weak, but now the situation has changed a lot. “Still, exports have grown, we see this based on weekly data. But I will give two figures that, it seems to me, will seriously show the situation: our share of rubles for exports that are now coming in, according to the Central Bank, in July was 41%. Back in January it was 34%… On the one hand, this is good, we always said: let’s make ruble payments. There they are – ruble payments,” Reshetnikov said.
At the same time, our share of imports is 30% in rubles. “And the second point is that even the currency that is being returned here, as of last week, 30% of this currency was bought back by large companies. That is, we have 60% returned in foreign currency, of this 60% another 30% is converted back. And that’s it, what remains, in fact, goes to pay for imports, withdrawal operations, and so on,” the minister continued.
In this situation, according to the minister, it is necessary to figure out what tools are available to respond to the situation. One of them is the key rate, with which the Central Bank is trying to reduce overall demand in the economy. “We have currency regulation — repatriation of foreign currency earnings, mandatory sales, and so on — but in principle, with these parameters, it doesn’t work much. Of what colleagues have to return, they actually return 85%… But I’ll emphasize again, they return in rubles. What are we saying — let them not return in rubles, let everything be returned in foreign currency? Then why did we convert foreign trade into rubles? Therefore, it seems to me that we need to develop some more complex solutions here,” Reshetnikov emphasized.
He added that some restrictions that most countries of the world accept can be calculated and discussed, as well as the structure of current lending can be analyzed. “We have a lot of rubles now serving foreign trade, and in those credit growth figures that sometimes make us happy, a large share, a growing share, is what services international trade. What is 41% (of export revenue — ed.) with us returns in rubles, this means we have a foreign exchange market abroad, and in principle it will soon be comparable to ours, and there some other regulator will somehow regulate… Therefore, it seems to me that there is still control or even monitoring of translations (necessary — ed.),» he added.
He indicated that the authorities, together with the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, are now studying the questions — “how many rubles do we have abroad, how many balances do we have in correspondent accounts abroad in rubles, and how these figures change.”
acts as the general information partner of the Moscow Financial Forum.