Central Bank: Capital runs from Russia

The Bank of Russia pre -appreciated the net outflow of capital from Russia in 2008. According to the Central Bank, which is given by Kommersant, 129.9 billion dollars left the country, which is a historical maximum. Most of the outflow fell on the fourth quarter of last year and was triggered by the transfer of bank deposits and cash into currency, as well as payments on corporate external debts.

The Central Bank predicts that in the first quarter of 2009, the pressure per ruble provided by corporate debts and stable demand for currency will decrease, but will remain significant.

The scale of the leakage of capital from Russia was unexpected even for the regulator itself. At the end of November, the first deputy chairman of the Central Bank, Alexei Ulyukaev, predicted an outflow of $ 100 billion. In 2007, a clean influx of capital in the amount of $ 83.1 billion was recorded.

At the same time, the Central Bank claims that a significant share of capital is withdrawn abroad by Russian companies. So, over the past three months of 2008, foreign assets of Russian companies and the population grew by $ 56.3 billion, and for the whole of 2008, they made a historic maximum of $ 147.3 billion.