MOSCOW, September 27 (Itar-Tass) —— The head of the Association of Regional Banks of Russia, Anatoly Aksakov, believes that in the near future the dollar will be fluctuating within 31.5-33 rubles per dollar. He shared his expectations with journalists earlier on Tuesday.
Asked if it would make sense to invest in the euro, he said that that should have been done three weeks ago, and now, as long as "nothing happens to Greece, the dollar will be fluctuating within 31.5-33 rubles."
Aksakov said recently the ruble was influenced not so much by oil prices, as capital flight, which proceeded very rapidly in recent years. However, if oil prices fall, for example, by 10 dollars, the ruble, of course, “will react downwards."
The head of the association doubts that Russia will be able to match the official forecast of capital outflow of 35 billion dollars.
"There will be a 40-billion-dollar outflow, and maybe more. If the Greek factor works, then it will be even greater," he said. However, Aksakov said that the outflow will be much lower than during the crisis year 2008, because at the moment in Russia there are far less foreign investors in the country than in October 2008.
From September 1, 2011 and up to this very moment the Bank of Russia has spent more than 13 billion dollars to support the ruble, and most of the costs were sustained over the last ten days, said Aksakov. He described this as some sort of "an internal situation, which indicates that we are prepared for some disasters, the Central Bank has the tools, and the government has the tools - they already have an idea of how to go about this business."
Aksakov believes this is a good moment for the Central Bank to expand the trading range. As he said, smooth devaluation costs us "too much." At a certain point devaluation cost Russia 200 billion dollars. At this moment "devaluation has picked up pace and the demand for currency grew 30 percent as compared with that in October 2008, when it surged up several-fold."