Run, dollar, run

The volume of foreign investment in the Russian economy is significantly reduced. About this with reference to the analysts "Renaissance Capital" on Monday reports "Kommersant". Foreign investors reduce investments in Russian assets for the fourth month in a row. During this time, according to the publication, they withdrew more than $ 1.6 billion from Russian shares - this is the maximum outflow over the past three and a half years.

The flight of capital, Kommersant writes , is associated with unrealized expectations regarding the rapprochement of the United States and Russia, an exacerbation of the corporate conflict between Rosneft and AFK System, as well as a drop in oil prices.

The outflow of investment from Russian funds occurs against the background of their influx in assets of other developing countries. India and Brazil became the leaders in raising funds among the BRIC countries, in the funds of which $ 2.6 billion and $ 1 billion, respectively, were invested in four months.

According to the economist, professor of European University Dmitry Travin , the outflow of capital from Russia is associated with the unwillingness of investors to take risks - without serious changes in domestic politics, the economy will not receive investments for high -quality growth. Therefore, many investors prefer to direct capital to other developing countries:

You can live in hot spots, but unpleasant

- Investors did not have much enthusiasm for Russia. The situation has slightly improved until the last moment due to the fact that significant masses of capital simply flowed in previous years. And then there were some grounds for optimism, but extremely speculative. The price of oil has grown somewhat. She stayed above $ 50 per barrel. In addition, it was assumed that maybe Putin will somehow agree with Trump, remove the sanctions and the like. Now oil has fallen again. Although not much, but still fell. And it is clear that there are no hopes for its growth in the near future, there are no hopes for lifting sanctions, hopes for the appearance of presidents and prime ministers in the West who would sympathize with Putin. So Russia is still considered as a “hot point” in an economic sense. You can live in hot spots, but unpleasant. Also in the economy.

According to Dmitry Travin, the flight of capital from Russia will one way or another will affect ordinary citizens who have been on the consequences of the crisis associated with the introduction of sanctions and falling oil prices for several years. Every year, the stagnation of the economy will be felt more and more, and the optimism of people whose income is constantly falling will decline.

The director of the Institute of Strategic Analysis of the FBC Igor Nikolaev believes that the flight of capital from Russia is not directly related to the standard of living in the country. However, he recalls that the real incomes of Russians are falling for the fourth year in a row:

There is economic growth, but there is no growth in real incomes

- The most alarming is that they fall the last quarters, the last months. There is economic growth, but there is no growth in real incomes. And this means that if additional risks are added to this unstable economic growth (in this case, this is increased flight of capital), then the dynamics of real incomes of the population will not improve. If they do not grow even with such a meager economic growth, then they certainly will not grow if the growth slows down. Therefore, not so directly, but indirectly, the outflow of capital is reflected at the standard of living of Russians and the real income of the population, ”says Igor Nikolaev.

The very flight of investors from Russia, the expert connects with an unstable situation in the economy, the temporary restoration of which was associated with rising oil prices:

The Russian economy is critically dependent on oil prices

-The Russian economy is still critical of oil prices. Here oil prices have unfolded in their dynamics. And now many, not without reason, say that the so -called "bear trend" has begun - now oil prices will decrease - to $ 40 per barrel, and maybe lower. But this means that the budget will continue to be critically dependent on the receipts of the oilfoldollars. It will be scarce. This is bad for the economy. The ruble in such a situation also began to weaken. In general, if you expect some structural reforms, then only after 2018. In general, those chronic risks were and remained, so investors, speculators considered that with such a movement of oil prices they increase, and began to withdraw their capital from Russia in large volumes.

Andrei Movchan, director of the Economic Policy program, is not inclined to dramatize the situation related to the outflow of capital from Russia - in his opinion, the loss of $ 2-3 billion will not affect the country's economy in which 400 billion reserve. Temporary outflow of capital is an ordinary market practice, which is in no way related to the political situation in Russia, the expert believes:

In the USA, a crisis of uncertainty is developing

- We are talking about a very short period of time, within the framework of which there is completely unreasonable volatility . Rather, it is justified by completely non -local reasons, but, on the contrary, by the fact that, for example, in the global markets the last 2–2.5 months in general, the appetite to debts has become a little smaller. This is also due to the fact that bets in the USA and the eurozone are growing. The dollar in relation to the euro goes down. If you look carefully, the dollar in relation to the euro lost about 8–9%. Accordingly, those investors who think are not in dollars and do not count the ruble to the dollar, see the ruble in this market in a completely different way. For Euro investors, for example, the ruble has recently fallen decent enough. This is due to the fact that in the USA the crisis of uncertainty is developing. The crisis of uncertainty is not a real crisis, but the risks are already growing. Because investors do not understand what is happening with the economic program of the new president. Inconsistency in actions, failure to fulfill these promises. Therefore, there is great resistance to many initiatives of Trump, ”says Andrei Movchan.

In addition, according to the economist, the temporary outflow of capital is associated with a fall in oil prices, which was inevitable after record growth in late 2016-early 2017:

Our country is actually an oil corporation

- Oil moved up for a long time - from the point of view of markets, this movement is almost 30%. This is a huge increase in oil prices. This could not but affect the payment balance of Russia and on the attitude to Russian ruble debt, which was very positive. Our country is actually an oil corporation. And when the oil corporation in a clear way in 30% revenue in connection with the growth of the goods, then, of course, the debt expressed in the internal currency will be interesting. Because the internal currency, most likely, will be fixed, which she, in fact, did in all this time. Further for the past two months we have been observing the movement of oil prices from 56 to 48–49 dollars. This movement is almost 15% down. And in the framework of this movement, investors cannot but react. If oil reaches 50 and goes up again, the investor will react again to this, ruble papers will go again. Again there will be an influx of capital, again we will see the movement of the ruble. There is nothing specific in this process. This is an absolutely ordinary market situation. And no matter how much I want to connect it with the wrong leadership of the country, I can’t do this, ”says economist Andrei Movchan .

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the president of Russia, also reacted to the news of the record output of capital: “We still believe that certain volatility is always possible. Capital comes freely to the country and leaves freely from here. It is largely conjunctural factors,” Gazeta.ru quotes the words of Peskov.