OREANDA-NEWS. On July 23, 2009 CBR issued a report detailing the country’s international currency reserves for the week ended 17 July, revealing that Russia’s reserves dropped by US2.8bn, dipping to US 398.1bn. The decline can be attributed to CBR's interventions in support of the ruble, estimated at more than US 4bn. However, since revaluation of the Russian currency’s euro component was positive, the decrease was more moderate than if the EUR/USD exchange rate had been stable, reported the press-centre of OTKRITIE FC.

In the week ended 23 July the ruble continued to strengthen, with the basket standing at 37.02 (based on EUR&USD official rates) on Thursday.

This represented a 1.7% decline compared with the previous week, when the ruble weighed in at 37.50 against the bi-currency basket. The ruble is likely to remain stable throughout next week. Traditionally, it is the period stretching from the last week of July and into August that harbors changes on the financial markets, and thus we believe that a weakening of the ruble may occur at that juncture.

On 22 July the Government decided to withdraw RUB1.35trln from its foreign currency denominated Reserve Fund, so it will be interested in a weaker ruble so that it is required to spend less.