The official estimate of six-month payment balance that was released Wednesday stunned economic analysts by the abrupt revision of a number of indicators.
Photo: Roman Yarovitsin
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Source of Money Outflow Hasn’t Drained
Under the CBR estimate, Russia’s foreign exchange assets amounted to $562.8 billion as of September 26, having shown the growth first time since late August. Regardless, the capital outflow continues, it may reach $45 billion from early August and the quarterly net capital outflow will be probably posted in the third quarter.
Russia’s foreign exchange assets grew by $3.4 billion to $562.8 billion September 19 to 26. They widened first time over a month; overall, they narrowed by $23.1 billion in the first three weeks of September. The assets lost $34.7 billion vs. the maxium of August 8, while the growth reached $83.5 billion from early this year.
CBR keeps its foreign exchange assets in gold, bonds and the U.S. dollar/euro/pound-denominated deposits. As of September 1, the gold portion of Russia’s reserves amounted to around $13.1 billion. The 7.9-percent growth in gold prices would have brought it to $14.1 billion by September 26, provided no sales or acquisitions had been carried out.
The current account of Russia’s payment balance has the surplus yet. In the absence of capital outflow, CBR continues to buy foreign exchange and the reserves were to grow additionally. As usual, the analysts differ in their estimates of net capital outflow. In Goldman Sachs, they speak of $1.9-billion outflow, while Mikhail Khromov from the Bank of Moscow gives between $5 billion and $7 billion and Kommersant estimates it at $6 billion to $8 billion.
The official estimate of six-month payment balance that was released Wednesday stunned economic analysts by abrupt revision of a number of indicators. The current account, for instance, narrowed to $26.2 billion, $8.6 billion (25 percent) down vs. the initial estimate of early July. The July-August performance of foreign trade signals that current balance will further decline, the pace of the import exceeds the rates of the export growth and Russia will have the capital outflow instead of inflow in the third quarter.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 03, 2008
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