NAUFOR head Timofeyev hopes problem of unblocking assets will be largely solved in 2024

MOSCOW. Feb 9 (Interfax) - The problem of unblocking assets will be largely solved in the course of this year, after which some of the funds of affected investors will return to the Russian market, the president of the National Association of Stock Market Participants (NAUFOR), Alexei Timofeyev said.

"This [blocked assets] is one of the most dramatic problems. We hope that it will be solved for the most part in the court of this year," Timofeyev said at a forum on Russia's financial system organized by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP).

"As a result of this, assets - securities and money of both foreign and Russian investors - will be released and some of them will return to the Russian financial market," Timofeyev said.

The Russian market is currently "exceptionally thin and vulnerable," he said. "Therefore, restoring its liquidity, its volumes, including unblocking assets, increasing the activity of institutional investors, retaining retail investors are the main challenges of this and probably next year," Timofeyev said.

The director of the Central Bank's department for investment financial intermediaries, Olga Shishlyannikova said in January that work on resolving the problem of Russian investors' blocked assets will continue this year and in 2025.