The ruble is currently strengthening and this trend might continue, but major deviations from the current equilibrium value should not be expected, Kremlin aide Maxim Oreshkin said in an interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets.
"The ruble is now strengthening and could strengthen further. But in general one should not expect any radical deviations of the ruble's exchange rate from the current equilibrium values," Oreshkin said.
Asked about the reasons for the ruble's steep decline in 2023 after its sharp rise in 2022, he said the weakening of the ruble in the middle of this year "foremost shows that our domestic demand has actively recovered."
"Obviously this recovery of consumer and investment demand led to the growth of demand for imported products," Oreshkin said.
According to him, oil and gas prices this year were lower than they were last year, against this backdrop, the ruble naturally corrected.
The exchange rate also "overshot" to an extent in the direction of the ruble's depreciation, primarily due to repayment of some foreign debts by exporters, the need to increase financing for buyers of Russian goods abroad, and foreign companies' departure from the Russian market and the purchase of their assets by Russian investors. All this together increased demand for foreign currency and led to the weakening of the ruble, he said.
"Now we're seeing that these temporarily capital outflows are beginning to decrease. The balance of payments is stabilizing and the ruble is now demonstrating an upward trend," Oreshkin said.
