Banks rush to get rid of dollars

This afternoon the weighted average dollar exchange rate with tomorrow settlements is still at RUR29.54 as it was this morning, which is equal to the official dollar rate for tomorrow. After 13:00 Moscow time commercial banks intensified their activity however. At 15:00 Moscow time the trading volume was over $208m, stepping up by $150m over two hours.

Commercial bank dealers link the growth in the activity of traders to another sag in the dollar against the euro on foreign exchanges. Traders are now in a hurry to get rid of dollars in fear of another decline in the dollar rate on the Russian exchange market that is bound to follow.