OREANDA-NEWS. Russia received $18 billion in financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This is reported by Russian media RBC with reference to the words of sources.

It is noted that Russia received a cash loan in the form of special drawing rights (SDR) as part of the anti-crisis distribution of the fund's money. Today, the historic distribution of special drawing rights among the member countries of the International Monetary Fund has entered into force. Of these, the total volume amounted to 456 billion SDR, which is equivalent to $650 billion.

The head of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, called the monetary distribution «a vaccination for the world economy during an unprecedented crisis». It was noted that such assistance will help accelerate the pace of recovery of national economies, as well as increase the liquidity of international reserves.

Special drawing rights is an artificially created means for payment settlements of the IMF, which does not have a physical form. Their exchange rate is determined daily based on the exchange rates of a basket of major world currencies — the dollar, euro, yen, British pound and yuan. Currently, there are 204 billion SDR in circulation (equivalent to about $290 billion), the new round brings the total amount to 660 billion SDR.