Ruble will soon stabilize, no need to raise foreign currency sale threshold as it is already being exceeded - Russian finance minister

MOSCOW. Dec 5 (Interfax) - Increasing the mandatory foreign currency sale threshold as a tool to stabilize the ruble exchange rate makes no practical sense, as exporters are already exceeding it, and the market situation will stabilize within a week without additional measures, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said.

"We recently lowered [the mandatory foreign currency sale threshold first from 80% to 60% then from 60% to 40%]. And in fact, our current level of foreign currency sales is 36%, or 40% multiplied by 90%, to be precise. But in reality, as Rosfinmonitoring [the Russian Federal Financing Monitoring Service] tells us, the level of foreign currency sales is 52%, so there's no point in increasing it," Siluanov told journalists on the sidelines of a meeting of the Strategic Development and National Projects Council.

"This whole ruble situation arose after sanctions were imposed on our main bank, Gazprombank [MOEX: GZPR], which is a participant in foreign trade settlements. Now the situation is stabilizing, and our foreign trade participants are finding ways to settle with their counterparts abroad, so I think in a week or two, another week, everything will be fine," he said.