OREANDA-NEWS. August 11, 2009. Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin sees no reason for ruble devaluation and opposes such operations, reported the press-centre of FINAM.

“There are no reasons for devaluation now… I’m against artificial operations and devaluations”, Kudrin told journalists and added that in his opinion, the market should set the exchange rate of the national currency.

The ruble recently weakened against the bi-currency basket, while oil prices climbed. Kudrin expects oil prices to remain high at least until mid-2010, which makes devaluation unnecessary.

The Finance Minister projects Russia’s GDP to return to the pre-crisis level in 4-5 years.