Mikhail Zadornov: Continuing fall of New York Stock Exchange major indices will not lead to slump in rouble rate

The continuing fall of the major indices at the New York Stock Exchange will not result in the slump of the rouble rate, said deputy chairman of the State Duma budget committee Mikhail Zadornov in an interview with journalists on Tuesday, when commenting on the lowest in 5 years fall of the US high-tech index NASDAQ.

The same instability of the American economy "has been seen over the last two months", when the fall in the American market has resulted in a slump on European and Asian stock exchanges, and vice versa, he said. "The situation is utterly unstable, and any negative news leads to a recession," the deputy chairman believes.

The situation with the US dollar is, however, different, according to Zadornov. At present its rate is growing, yet while it is not clear that "the American economy has finally entered an upswing, Europe and Asia will still suffer such fluctuations on the stock markets," he said.

In the near future the Russian rouble will be strengthening, as the Central Bank is US dollar-oriented, while the rouble-dollar balance will remain the same, as "though formally the rouble is losing value, it is losing it slower than the inflation is growing, which means that the rouble is slowly growing", Zadornov explained.

Together with the 2003 budget the Central Bank is to present a 2003 financial policy concept to the State Duma, he said.

"When we see the budget and the main landmarks in the Central Bank foreign policy, approaches to the exchange rate policy will become clear. Now Russian citizens should take these swings on the American market easy, as they will evidently be repeating many times," Zadornov believes.