OREANDA-NEWS. October 13, 2009. CBR reported that as of 1 October the monetary base stood at RUB4,803.7bn, 2.4% lower than the month before, reported the press-centre of OTKRITIE FC.

View: We regard this news as negative because we strongly feel that the recovery requires monetary expansion, not the opposite process. We agree with Prime Minister Putin when he recently stated that “money hunger” could facilitate the risk of a second wave of recession. From our point of view, the decrease of the reserve was due mainly to absorption by CBR, as banks returned loans to it.

In fact, in September the volume of unsecured loans given by CBR to the banking system decreased by RUB222bn.