Experts explained the strengthening of the ruble

For five months in a row, the Russian currency has been strengthening against the US dollar and the euro. The main factor contributing to this trend was a significant decrease in the volume of purchases of foreign currency by Russian legal entities, Evgeny Baboshkin, head of business development at Prime Brokerage Service, told Izvestia.

"The leading exporters remain highly active in repatriating foreign exchange earnings, having sold currencies worth $10 billion, which is only 2% less than the previous period. The maintenance of sales volumes is explained by the stable need to pay taxes on additional income, a decrease in budget payments under the damping mechanism, as well as a reduction in operating costs in the face of high interest rates and tightened requirements for lending in rubles," he said.

In six months, the total volume of currency purchased on the Russian market has almost halved, reaching 1.82 trillion rubles. Weak demand for foreign currency and a fairly high volume of foreign exchange supply by exporters keep the ruble at current levels, but there are no more significant fundamental reasons for its further strengthening yet, the expert added.

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According to him, the balance of factors "for" and "against" further strengthening of the ruble is balanced, which means there is a low probability of seeing it near 75 rubles per dollar this year.

"In addition, as is well known, too strong a ruble is unprofitable for Russian exporters, and the Central Bank (Central Bank. The Russian Federation has effective, time—tested mechanisms for artificially weakening it, in particular, an increase in the volume of currency purchases for the needs of the Ministry of Finance," he added.

In turn, Spartak Sobolev, head of the Alfa-Forex Investment Strategy research department, drew attention to the fact that the ruble is again successfully completing weekly trading in the range of 80-83.5 rubles for 1 dollar, 11-11.5 for yuan.

"Attempts to strengthen it are not continuing due to the lack of new positive news on the external background, weak interest from importers limits the possibility of significant weakening. The upper boundaries of the May corridor are 85.7 rubles per dollar and 11.17 rubles per yuan, respectively," he said.

Earlier, on April 8, the Central Bank of Russia reported that the ruble strengthened in March due to a good trade balance and demand for ruble assets. At the same time, it is noted that due to the geopolitical situation and signals of maintaining tight monetary policy, the Moscow Exchange index showed negative dynamics at the end of the month.