Central Bank prevents dollar from plummeting on currency market - 1 April, 2003

The weighted average dollar exchange rate in deals with tomorrow settlements dropped to RUR 31.30 on the Russian interbank market in the afternoon today. This is RUR 0.02 lower than the official dollar rate. Currency analysts noted that this fall could be much more significant but for the efforts of the Central Bank. The Central Bank was hampering a fall in the dollar rate below RUR 31.30 with ruble interventions. However, experts estimated these interventions as not very large because the volume of deals with tomorrow settlements was below $30m at 1:30 p.m. Commenting on the further development of this situation, they forecasted a fall in the dollar rate to RUR 31.3 tomorrow morning.