The Russian government is preparing for the fall of oil and the ruble

The rise in prices on the oil market, which supported the influx of currencies to Russia and GDP growth, is close to the limit, the Russian Economic Development Ministry believes.
07.10.2017
Origin source
Reduction in quotes of "black gold", according to the forecast of the Ministry of Economic Development, will begin in November and will continue until the end of next year, follows from the materials of the agency to the draft federal budget, which TASS quotes.

With current marks of about $ 56 a barrel will fall in price to $ 49 in November and 47 in December, the MED considers.

At this level, the price will hold until the spring, after which a new round of fall will begin, which will lower the cost of the barrel to $ 41.2 by the end of 2018.

After the oil, the ruble will also begin to weaken: the dollar rate, which is at 16.24 Moscow time on Friday 57.78 rubles, will rise to 62.1 rubles in November and 63 rubles in December.

By the end of 2018, the dollar will rise in price to 65.7 rubles, and in 2019, on average, it will cost 66.9 rubles.

The Russian foreign exchange market and the ruble exchange rate maintains a huge inflow of capital into federal loan bonds, Sergei Kozlovsky, head of the analytical department at Grand Capital, recalls. Since the beginning of 2016, non-residents have invested about $ 15 billion in government debt securities and, according to the Central Bank, at the beginning of September kept them at 1.9 trillion rubles, occupying almost a third of the market.

The sharp exit of foreigners from carry-trade operations, which are a game on the difference in interest rates, is a key risk for the ruble, warns the head of operations at the currency and money market of Metallinvestbank Sergey Romanchuk.

To speed up this process, further tightening of US sanctions may be imposed, he says: the ban on investments in the Russian public debt to the US Treasury is entrusted to work until March 2018.

However, even without new sanctions, the "golden era" of the curry trades in the ruble is coming to an end, says Alexander Losev, general director of Sputnik AM: as the US Federal Reserve raises the rate, and the Central Bank reduces it, the difference that non-residents play is shrinking, depriving investment in the ruble of attractiveness.