ALEXANDER KNOBEL EXPLAINED WHY THE RUBLE RATE OF EXCHANGE WILL NOT BE STABLE

The dollar and the euro have shown a rapid rise against the ruble, which was last seen back in early June. Alexander Knobel, Head of the International Trade Department at the Gaidar Institute, explained to RTVI why the ruble is falling and whether Russians should expect it to stabilize.

“Now, hard currency will be unstable in any case, because the Bank of Russia has lost its power to intervene due to freezing of gold and forex reserves. Therefore, instability is an absolutely natural phenomenon. The Central Bank has very limited capacity to influence the hard currency market, and thus, trade largely determines the exchange rate. Why are the dollar and the euro rising? Firstly, the price of oil is going down. Secondly, imports to Russia, including parallel imports, are slowly growing. Logistics is slowly improving, and demand for foreign currency to pay for these imports is growing as well. These factors slightly shift the exchange rate in this direction.”