Russia received $18 billion from the IMF

Russia received $18 billion from the IMF in the form of special drawing rights (SDR) as part of the anti-crisis distribution of the fund's funds. In total, the IMF distributed funds in the amount of about $650 billion.

On August 23, the decision of the IMF to allocate 456 billion SDRs (the so-called special drawing rights - the internal currency of the structure) came into force, which corresponds to about $650 billion. Of this money, developing countries received $275 billion, including $25 billion allocated to the CIS states and Georgia.

The head of the fund, Kristalina Georgieva, called the new plan a "historic decision" and "also the largest SDR allocation in the history of the IMF." According to her, the allocation of money will be able to stimulate the global economy during an unprecedented crisis.

Countries can use the received SDRs in several ways, explained Sofia Donets, chief economist at Renaissance Capital for Russia and the CIS, to RBC. For example, a country can receive foreign exchange financing under the IMF loan program or exchange funds for hard currency if it enters into a voluntary bilateral agreement with one of the 31 countries (plus the European Central Bank) that agrees to provide such currency.

Russia, according to Donets, has three main options for what it can use the funds received from the IMF. According to the base scenario, the Bank of Russia will simply add them to its international reserves, which amount to about $594 billion. Alternatively, Russia could join the initiative to voluntarily redistribute SDRs from richer countries to poor ones. And according to a hypothetical scenario, the country can provide SDRs to support Belarus.

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We talked about how the IMF's decision to inject billions into the global economy can help it recover from the coronacrisis here .