THIS MESSAGE (MATERIAL) IS CREATED AND (OR) DISTRIBUTED BY A FOREIGN MASS MEDIA PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT AND (OR) A RUSSIAN LEGAL ENTITY PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT.
The Russian authorities have a significant amount of reserves, despite their partial blocking by Western countries, and the probability of default on public debt is now extremely low. This opinion was expressed by the first vice-president of the Center for Strategic Research (CSR) Gleb Pokatovich in an interview with RIA Novosti.
According to him, “the total amount of Russian public debt at the beginning of this year amounted to just over 21 trillion rubles (15.8% of GDP).” “The government of the Russian Federation has a significant amount of reserves, even despite their partial blocking by Western countries,” PRIME quotes the expert.
According to the latest data on the geographical structure of gold and foreign exchange (international) reserves, 48.6% were placed in France, Japan, Germany, the USA, Great Britain, Austria and Canada, Pokatovich said.
“However, at the current date, this share is likely to be even lower as the progressive policy of the Bank of Russia to reduce the share of investment in US public debt,” he suggested.
The expert recalled that the volume of the National Wealth Fund (NWF) as of February 1, 2022 reached 13.6 trillion rubles. (10.2% of GDP).
“If we exclude the assets affected by the sanctions and the securities of Russian companies, which have seriously fallen in price as a result of the collapse in the stock market, then the remaining volume of funds of the NWF still looks significant. In particular, 530.6 billion rubles were placed on deposits with VEB.RF, 138.434 billion rubles were placed on subordinated deposits of VTB and Gazprombank, 226.7 billion Chinese yuan, 405.7 thousand kg of gold in impersonal form and 266.1 million rubles,” calculated the first vice-president of the CSR.
In addition, he stressed, there are significant resources in the treasury accounts in the form of free balances, as well as the government’s reserve fund. “Finally, the Russian government, together with the Bank of Russia, is taking a number of measures to maintain the stability of the Russian financial market and stabilize the exchange rate. In particular, in order to prevent a fall in the value of domestic debt securities, the Russian regulator decided to impose a ban on brokers from executing orders from foreign investors to sell securities,” Pokatovich said.
“Thus,” he summed up, “given the significant liquidity reserve and measures to stabilize the situation on the financial market, the probability of a default on the debt of the Russian Federation is objectively extremely low.”
Recall that on February 21, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed decrees recognizing the independence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), and on February 24 he made an emergency appeal to the Russians and announced a special military operation in Donbass. In his speech, he stated that “circumstances require decisive action from Russia” and stressed that “Russia will not allow Ukraine to have nuclear weapons.”
In response to Russia’s actions, Western countries (USA, Canada, European Union, Great Britain, Japan) announced new, tougher sanctions against the Russian Federation, including financial and economic ones.
In particular, Russian banks fell under the sanctions, including Sberbank, VTB, Novikombank, FC Otkritie and Sovcombank, and for a number of state-owned companies it was difficult to attract foreign capital.
Later, the EU countries and the United States agreed to disconnect Russian banks that fell under sanctions from the international system of interbank transactions and information exchange SWIFT. In addition, it was decided to freeze the assets of the Bank of Russia, which will create difficulties for its use of international reserves. EU countries also pledged to take steps to limit the sale of citizenship — the so-called “golden passports” that allow wealthy Russians connected to the Russian government to become citizens of EU states and access their financial systems.
You can follow the chronicle of events around Ukraine on March 2 here.
Source: Rosbalt
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
