Russian Finance Ministry to reduce foreign currency/gold sales to 0.3 bln rubles per day from Aug 7

MOSCOW. Aug 5 (Interfax) - From August 7 to September 4, the Finance Ministry plans to sell foreign currency/gold under the budget rule for a total of 6.2 billion rubles, with daily operations amounting to the equivalent of 0.3 billion rubles, the ministry said.

From July 7 to August 6, the Finance Ministry is selling foreign currency/gold for a total of 18.77 billion rubles, with daily operations amounting to the equivalent of 0.82 billion rubles. A month earlier, it purchased foreign currency and gold for 28.3 billion rubles, or 1.5 billion rubles per day. Purchases were also carried out from May 13 to June 5 - 41.6 billion rubles, or 2.3 billion rubles per day. Prior to this, starting April 7, the Finance Ministry sold foreign currency and gold for 35.9 billion rubles, or 1.6 billion rubles per day.

The Finance Ministry expects shortfalls in federal budget oil and gas revenues in August to amount to 12.1 billion rubles. The deviation of actual oil and gas revenues from the expected monthly figure in July came to 5.9 billion rubles.

The Finance Ministry's publication of new data makes it possible to estimate the volume of operations carried out by the Central Bank of Russia on the foreign exchange market.

In H2 2025, the Central Bank will purchase or sell foreign currency based on the Finance Ministry's announced volume of operations under the budget rule, adjusted by sales of 8.94 billion rubles per day. In H1, operations were adjusted by sales of 8.86 billion rubles per day.

Taking into account the announced volumes of Finance Ministry operations, from August 7 to September 4, 2025, the CBR will thus sell foreign currency amounting to 9.24 billion rubles per day. From July 7 to August 6, it sold 9.76 billion rubles per day.

The Finance Ministry switched to selling foreign currency and gold in April after a prolonged period of purchases, then resumed buying in May.

Prior to this, the last time the Finance Ministry conducted currency and gold sales was in January 2024 (69.1 billion rubles, with daily volumes of 4.1 billion rubles). The previous extended sales period lasted from February 2022 through July 2023. In August 2023, the ministry resumed purchases and had been buying foreign currency and gold every month since then, except for January 2024.