Dollar eases back at UTS - 28 February, 2003

In the first half of this morning's session on US currency the average-weighted dollar exchange rate amounted to 31.57 RUR/USD, which was RUR0.01 lower than the previous figure. Yesterday the ruble strengthened by RUR0.03 at the UTS. Specialists of commercial banks pointed to the fact that yesterday and today the decrease in US dollar quotations was amid low activity of participants of the trade.

According to dealers, although the volume of supplied export currency revenues is exceeding the current demand for dollars, this volume is considerably lower than it was last week. Evidence of this fact has been a relatively small trade volume over the past four morning sessions in a row, including today's. In particular the total trade volume at the special sessions on February 25-27 was a bit more than $320m, while on February 18, 20 and 21 it was higher than $1.8bn.