CB bought less than $10 bln on currency market in 3 mths
MOSCOW. Sept 29 (Interfax) - The Central Bank of Russia bought less than $10 billion on the currency market in the last three months, CB First Deputy Chairman Alexei Ulyukayev said in an interview with the Vesti 24 TV news channel.
"The CB is already pursuing a policy of moderate influence [on exchange-rate formation]. The CB has scaled the number of days when it is present in the market and the volume of its transactions down greatly," he said.
"The volume of operations in the last three months totaled less than $10 billion. That's not much, and we will pursue a course aimed at minimizing our activity on the domestic currency market in future," he said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Ulyukayev said the Central Bank purchased just over $1 billion in September at a price equivalent to a bicurrency basket ($0.55 and 0.45 euro) value of about 36.4 rubles.
Virtually all of the buying was done on September 29, he said.
The ruble is currently "quasi-floating." The Central Bank conducts transactions on the domestic currency exchange in order to damp excessive exchange rate fluctuations.