Russia's central bank hiked its key interest rate by 350 basis points to 12% on Tuesday (August 15), an emergency move to try and halt the rouble's recent slide after a public call from the Kremlin for tighter monetary policy.

Moscow

The Russian economy has been impacted by a raft of global sanctions as world leaders try to pressure Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine.

Russian Sanctions

Russian central bank jacks up rates to 12%

Russia's central bank took action to support the struggling ruble on Tuesday. It hiked its key interest rate by 350 basis points to 12%. The move comes after the ruble fell past the 100 threshold against the dollar on Monday. On the same day, President Vladimir Putin's economic adviser Maxim Oreshkin criticised the central bank. He blamed what he called its soft monetary policy for weakening the ruble. Hours after Oreshkin's public criticism, the bank announced the emergency meeting. Analysts largely agreed the move would not have a long-lasting impact, particularly as the war in Ukraine drags on. The Russian economy has been hit by Western sanctions and soaring military spending. Yevgeny Nadorshin is chief economist at PF Capital. The problem is that the instrument which the central bank has chosen is not the most efficient in the short term as I see it right now. But yes, it looks like it was enough in order to set a barrier around three-digit exchange rates so the market no longer tries to attack it. And yesterday they passed, the dollar passed below, it slipped below that on the news that the central bank intends to intervene. But we don't see much of a success. In the morning there were movements towards like 95, 93 rubles per dollar, but this ended up pretty quickly. The central bank last made an emergency rate hike in February last year with a raise to 20%. It then steadily lowered the cost of borrowing to 7.5% as strong inflation pressure eased. Since its last cut in September, the bank had held rates before an eventual 100 basis point hike to 8.5% at its last scheduled meeting in July. The next rate decision is due on September 15th. Annual inflation is now above the central bank's 4% target and speeding up. Russia's widening budget deficit and a labour shortage have contributed to rising inflationary pressure this year, but the ruble's quick slide from around 70 against the dollar at the start of the year to more than 100 on Monday pushed the central bank to act. The bank blames the ruble's slide on Russia's shrinking current account surplus, which is down 85% year-on-year in January to July.

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Russian Sanctions