OREANDA-NEWS. In the week ended 27 August, the ruble fluctuated near 37.6 against the bi-currency basket. Only once, on 21 August, did the exchange rate breach the 38 markl. During the week the ruble was supported by tax payments, reported the press-centre of Otkritie FC.

On Thursday, the ruble had weakened to 37.69 (based on EUR&USD official rates) from the previous day’s rate of 37.49. We think that next week the ruble will likely continue weakening as the tax payment period ends. Traditionally, the onset of autumn has not been very favorable to the Russian national currency.

CBR issued a report on Thursday detailing the country’s international currency reserves for the week ended 21 August, revealing that Russia’s reserves decreased by US2.3bn, reaching US 398.3bn. The decline was due mainly to undetermined operations with commercial banks and to a little extent to CBR interventions. The negative revaluation of the euro component of the reserves could have been responsible for as much as US 0.5bn of the decline.