2023-08-14 17:33:48
There was urgency: faced with the fall of the rouble, to its lowest since March 2022 in the wake of the Kremlin’s assault on Ukraine, the Russian Central Bank announced the holding of a surprise meeting on the key rate on Tuesday .
“On Tuesday, August 15, 2023, a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Bank of Russia will be held to consider the issue of the level of key interest rates,” the BCR said in a statement on Monday.
An announcement will be made immediately after, at 10:30 a.m. local time (3:30 a.m. Montreal time), she said.
One of the main causes of the fall of the currency is the state of foreign trade. Russia is suffering in particular from the considerable fall in income linked to the sale of its hydrocarbons, under the effect of the sanctions and the determination of the Europeans to get out of their energy dependence vis-à-vis Moscow.
The BCR statement somewhat reassured the markets, with the ruble rebounding at the end of the day.
At the Moscow Stock Exchange, at the end of the afternoon, it was thus necessary to pay 98 rubles to obtain a dollar and 107 rubles for a euro, after the rates of 100 and 110 were exceeded respectively in the morning.
If the leaders of the BCR were still hammering in recent days that they had not planned to raise the main key rate, despite the weakening of the national currency and the return of inflation, they seem ready to change their minds. .
The BCR, whose next meeting on rates was normally scheduled for mid-September, will thus intervene. If it resolves to an increase, it would be the second increase in the key rate in less than a month.
It had already raised its main rate from 7.5% to 8.5% on July 21, a first since February 2022.
“It’s scary! »
The continuous weakening of the ruble in recent weeks has many Russians fearing a weakening of their standard of living, against a backdrop of the return of inflation (+4.3% over one year in July), Western sanctions and the cost growing financier of the Ukrainian conflict.
“Prices are rising and it’s scary! “, laments to AFP Maxime Efremov, a young Muscovite of 23 years.
“Everything will go up now, from transport to food prices. Of course, we ordinary citizens are going to be particularly affected,” said Viktor Rybakov, a 61-year-old man who works in the medical sector.
However, nothing to worry about Lioudmila Lebedeva, a 74-year-old retiree.
According to her, “these big problems” encountered by the Russian economy are a necessary step before regaining the greatness of Russia: “Everything that is happening today is for the revival of Russia”, believes- She.
Retirees, however, saw their purchasing power largely undermined last year by very high inflation, at more than 17% last spring, after years marked by the COVID-19 pandemic which had killed several hundred thousand people. people in the country.
“People have understood that nothing will be like before. […] But everything will work out in time,” also thinks Anna Rebrova, a 33-year-old public relations manager.
To cope with the rapidly deteriorating situation, the BCR also announced last week the suspension until the end of the year of its purchases of foreign currencies on the national exchange market.
The weakening of the rouble, however, allows the Russian state to replenish its coffers, because for each dollar or euro currently acquired, the government has de facto more rubles to cover its expenses, which have risen sharply due to the conflict in Ukraine.
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