BOR (Moscow Region) (Sputnik) — Russia's Central Bank does not plan to artificially weaken the national currency, the bank’s governor Elvira Nabiullina said Thursday.
US media cited financial sources on Wednesday, who claimed that Russian authorities were considering intentionally weakening the ruble to plug budget holes caused by falling oil revenues.
"It is absurd. We are not considering changes to the exchange-rate policy," Nabiullina told reporters at an annual meeting of Russian bankers near Moscow.
Nabiullina said Russia had switched to a floating exchange rate, making its policy transparent. "Any attempts to influence the exchange rate, including to compensate budget losses, is tempering that will have a huge negative impact," she explained.
The Russian Finance Ministry said Wednesday it was not considering measures to devaluate the national currency. Contrarily, all proposed measures were aimed at strengthening the ruble, it said in a statement.
The ruble has lost more than half its value since mid-2014 and is currently trading at over 80 to the US dollar.
