Russia's Finance Ministry as of Jan 15 to allocate 4.1 bln rubles/day for sale of currency/gold under fiscal rule
MOSCOW. Jan 11 (Interfax) - Russia's Finance Ministry plans from January 15 to February 6 to allocate funds totaling 69.1 billion rubles for the sale of foreign currency/gold as part of the fiscal rule, with daily purchases equivalent to 4.1 billion rubles, the ministry said in a statement.
The Finance Ministry is thereby returning to sales for the first time since the resumption of purchases in August last year.
The Finance Ministry expects additional oil and gas revenues to the federal budget to total 130.8 billion rubles in January. The deviation of actually received oil and gas revenues was minus 199.9 billion rubles in December from the expected monthly volume of oil and gas revenues. The ministry explains this move by the adjustment of tax legislation regarding the excise tax on petroleum crude materials for processing, filing the corresponding updated tax returns, as well as the deviation of physical volume indicators from the forecast values.
Purchases are 11.7 billion rubles per day from December 7 to January 12, totaling 244.8 billion rubles for the period.
The publication of the Finance Ministry's new data makes it possible to assess the volume of operations to be carried out by the Central Bank of Russia on the currency related to the replenishment and use of funds National Wealth Fund money.
The Central Bank has said it will buy or sell foreign currency based on the amount of fiscal rule-based operations announced by the Finance Ministry for the amount to be sold totalling11.8 billion rubles per day in H1 2024, from January 9 to June 28, to be precise.
Additionally, in January 2024, the Central Bank will also complete its sales of currency as part of its mirroring of the investment of funds from the National Wealth Fund in H1 2023 at 0.8 billion rubles per day.
In light of the MinFin's new data, the Central Bank will increase sales to 16.7 billion rubles worth of foreign currency per day from January 15-31 and 15.9 billion rubles from February 1-6, from 0.9 billion rubles in the period January 9-12.
The Finance Ministry on August 7 moved to purchases as part of the fiscal rule for the first time since February last year. The volume of purchases at the time was set at the equivalent of 1.8 billion rubles per day, and the overall volume was 40.5 billion rubles as on September 6. The volume of daily purchases was increased seven-fold as of September 7, and the total volume of funds allocated was set at 276.16 billion rubles, or 13.15 billion rubles per day, in the period until October 5. From October 6, 398.72 billion rubles were allocated for purchases, or 18.12 billion rubles per day, rising to 621.1 billion rubles or 29.6 billion rubles per day from November 8 but falling to 244.8 billion rubles or 11.7 billion rubles a day in December.