27 Apr 2022 17:38

Russian MinFin still planning to dispense with borrowing in 2022, could test OFZ market in 2023

ST. PETERSBURG. April 27 (Interfax) - The Russian Finance Ministry still plans to dispense with domestic borrowing in 2023.

The ministry missed several auction days at the beginning of the year due to high market volatility, and it has not sold any federal loan bonds or OFZ since the start of the military operation in Ukraine. Instead of publishing an auction schedule for the second quarter, the ministry on March 31 said a schedule would be disclosed after the decision to resume OFZ placements.

Siluanov told the newspaper Izvestia in an interview on April 11 that the MinFin had no plans to enter the domestic borrowing market in 2022. "We are not planning to tap the domestic market or foreign markets this year. It makes no sense, because the cost of such borrowing would be cosmic," Siluanov said. But analysts still think some one-off placements might make sense, in particular inflation-linked OFZ-IN.

"We aren't planning any this year, no [OFZ] at all," Siluanov said on Wednesday, when asked whether those plans still stood.

As for next year, there are no decisions yet, he said. "But if the situation stabilizes with bond prices, with inflation, then I think we will quietly test the market," he said.

Siluanov said he was not worried the MinFin would find it hard to return to the market after such a long pause. "Is it rally that long? Less than a year, that's all," he said.