OREANDA-NEWS. September 11, 2009. The ruble is strengthening against the bi-currency basket and the dollar. On Thursday, the ruble appreciated to 37.25 against the basket (EUR & USD official rates). A week ago it was 37.90. The dollar was below RUB31 for the first time since late July, reported the press-centre of OTKRITIE FC.

CBR issued its weekly report on 10 September about Russia’s international reserves for the week ended 4 September. On Monday, CBR had issued its August report. The dynamics of the reserves was mysterious to some extent.

On 28 August they stood at US 404.9bn, climbed to US 409.7bn by 1 September, and then fell back again to US 404.9bn on 9 September. The IMF has bolstered members’ reserves through an allocation of Special Drawing Rights, emitting US 250bn in SDRs on 28 August, with Russia’s portion at US6.9bn.

This unique operation by the IMF, coupled with a lack of clarity regarding the figures for the foreign currency denominated portion of commercial banks correspondent accounts, make it difficult to piece together an explanation of the movements in the reserves. There were no interventions, and a revaluation could not impact the dynamics of the reserves in so strong a manner.

Yesterday, Russian was slated to receive an SDR allocation of US2bn, as part of the IMF operations mentioned above. As the accounting details are as yet unclear, the future might reveal things in CBR reports difficult to explain. Forthcoming reports will show the reserves gaining from SDRs proceedings and a positive revaluation of their non-dollar components.