Investments of nonresidents in Russia to remain blocked while Russia's int'l reserves remain frozen - Siluanov

MOSCOW. May 27 (Interfax) - The authorities are continuing to cancel the capital restrictions introduced at the end of February and the beginning of March, but the ban on withdrawing the funds of nonresidents will remain while Russia's international reserves are frozen, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said.

"We're gradually annulling the mandatory sale of currency revenue, it's now been lowered to 50%. The ability of individuals to withdraw currency from the country has gone up fivefold to $50,000, and so on and so forth. And we're going to do this going forward. We're going to normalize our economic situation, are going to move forward to ultimately lift all those restrictions that have been introduced," Siluanov said during a lecture at the Financial University.

"The only thing is those investments that have been made in Russia by foreigners from unfriendly countries, we'll hold them the same as they're going to hold our gold and foreign exchange reserves," he said.

Restrictions on the movement of capital were introduced in response to the freezing of Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves, as well as in response to freezes on the assets of major Russian companies, Siluanov said. "We responded in the same vein: we froze and aren't releasing this money back," he said.

"I think that this measure will be preserved until those sanctions that have been imposed or those freezes that have been introduced on our reserves and assets have been canceled. Essentially, they've been stolen," he said.

Siluanov said earlier that sanctions had deprived Russia of access to $300 billion of its reserves.

Russia's international reserves totaled $583.4 billion as of May 20, 2022, while they reached $612.9 billion in 2021.