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The rouble has got stronger slightly, but the rouble exchange rate may go down again

The euro got cheaper by 74 kopecks down to 41.5 roubles

MOSCOW, June 6 (Itar-Tass) — On Tuesday, the rouble went up against the U.S. dollar and reached 33.2 roubles per U.S. dollar. The euro got cheaper by 74 kopecks down to 41.5 roubles. The Russian authorities stated that only external factors are to blame for an unstable rouble. However, the experts noted that the currency of neighbour countries remains stable and named domestic reasons for an unstable rouble.

Just a few months ago the fluctuations of the rouble exchange rate by ten kopecks looked like a surge, the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily reported. Recently the U.S. dollar and the euro on the Russian market sharply fluctuate by half a rouble and even more almost every day. On Tuesday, the rouble went up sharply unexpectedly against the U.S. currency (by 84 kopecks) to 33.2 roubles per U.S. dollar. The euro went cheaper by 74 kopecks to 41.5 roubles. The Central Bank issued the currency on the market, the market players said. Meanwhile, the general world decline in the U.S. dollar and growing oil prices play in favour of the rouble. Meanwhile, a weak rouble helps Russian economy, industrialists said.

From the point of view of a technical survey the rouble has some room for getting stronger against both world currencies, the newspaper noted. However, all depends from a shaky level of oil prices, which still keep in the range between 95 dollars and 100 dollars per barrel, but can fall again at any moment, just if the investors have some doubts again over the viability of European authorities. However, no analysts polled by the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily can say clearly what the medium-term future of the rouble is. They are speaking only about reference dates: elections in Greece on June 17 and the launch of the embargo on the Iranian oil on July 1.

Meanwhile, it is more profitable for Russian production industries, when foreign currencies have higher rates. The Business Russia experts drew this conclusion, as the latter were discussing the situation on the currency market. “The opinion of the experts constitute a consensus, approving a lower rouble exchange rate (to 33.5 roubles per U.S. dollar) and fixing this rouble exchange rate for at least six months with further decline to 34-35 roubles per U.S. dollar,” the committee said in its materials. The industrialists, who are interested in a high dollar exchange rate, expect positive macroeconomic effects from it: growing investments, a quicker industrial production growth, export and import substitution.

The Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily noted that the exchange rate of the Kazakhstani currency to U.S. dollar changed by 0.05% and Ukrainian hryvna got cheaper to the U.S. dollar by 0.045%. So, the fluctuations of these currencies were hundred times lower than that of Russian rouble. The rouble shows a high instability not for the first time. The Nezavisimaya Gazeta experts have right several explanations of this paradox. One of them is a major speculative market in Russia that is absent in Kazakhstan and Ukraine. The experts also named inflation expectations and the risks for the inflation triggering funding of unsecured budget expenditures as particularly domestic reasons for an unstable rouble.

“Neither Kazakhstan nor Ukraine experience such a strong dependence of the economy from fluctuations of the oil prices, as the case in Russia,” General Director of the Urals Union Company Marina Rizvanova noted. “Meanwhile, there are some domestic negative factors. Annual growth of the tariffs of natural monopolies was deliberately delayed from the beginning of the year to summer. This is the growth of domestic costs that spurs up negative market expectations and capital outflow in view of the import dependence and falling oil prices,” she underlined.