OREANDA-NEWS In December, the Russian Ministry of Finance will increase purchases of foreign currency and gold by almost a third. This is reported by the press service of the department.

According to the ministry, from December 6, 2024 to January 14, 2025, 114.4 billion rubles (5.4 billion per day) will be allocated for the purchase of foreign currency and gold. This decision is due to the fact that the agency is waiting for additional oil and gas budget revenues in the amount of 95.9 billion rubles. The deviation of actually received revenues from the expected monthly volume in November amounted to 18.5 billion rubles.

To reduce the volatility of financial markets, the Bank of Russia suspended mirroring purchases of foreign currency by the Ministry of Finance to the domestic foreign exchange market from November 28, 2024 until the end of 2024. The decision on the resumption by the Bank of Russia of operations in the domestic foreign exchange market as part of mirroring regular operations related to the implementation of the budget rule will be made taking into account the current situation in financial markets, the regulator promised.

Earlier, the head of VTB, Andrey Kostin, said that the exchange rate of the Russian currency, which is correcting after a sharp drop, is stabilizing at a level slightly above 100 rubles per dollar. He called the exchange rate jump "in many ways an emotional outburst" that occurred against the background of the introduction of American sanctions against Russian banks. Fluctuations in the value of Western currencies now do not have the same effect on a credit institution that was observed at a time when "half of the bank's balance sheet was in dollars," the top manager added.