What to do with currency — economist’s advice

Rus­sians should not rush to buy for­eign cur­ren­cy or exchange it for rubles with­out urgent need, econ­o­mist Igor Niko­laev said in an inter­view with MK.

“If there is an urgent need to get rubles, of course, you need to sell for­eign exchange reserves. If not, then there is no need to rush. We see that now the restric­tions are grad­u­al­ly eas­ing, there­fore, noth­ing will pre­vent you from sell­ing dol­lars lat­er,” Niko­laev said.

The expert also sug­gests that the trend towards the weak­en­ing of the dol­lar may change. So, cit­i­zens will be able to exchange cur­ren­cy at a more favor­able rate.

Niko­laev notes that, although the dol­lar and euro exchange rates are now favor­able, there is no need to run and exchange all the mon­ey, but only those that will not be need­ed in the fore­see­able future, that is, if they can be called “extra mon­ey.”

And what about the ruble?

Despite West­ern sanc­tions against Rus­sia, the ruble has been ris­ing in price since mid-March and returned to the lev­el of two years ago.

It is worth not­ing that the coun­try’s author­i­ties have done every­thing pos­si­ble to strength­en the ruble. Among the mea­sures tak­en: the intro­duc­tion of a spe­cial regime and the block­ing of cap­i­tal out­flow routes.

Thus, there is a ban on the sale of assets for non-res­i­dents, as well as restric­tions on for­eign exchange trans­ac­tions. Sig­nif­i­cant deci­sions include gas sup­plies for rubles.

As a result, the demand for the nation­al cur­ren­cy is formed by importers and the pop­u­la­tion of the coun­try.