New York, December 05, 2014 -- Absent a further substantial fall in oil prices, the Russian central bank's foreign exchange reserves (FXRs) are sufficient to cover the country's external debt obligations in 2015, says Moody's Investors Service in a report published today.
Moody's report, entitled "Foreign Exchange Reserves Decreasing but Sufficient to Cover 2015 External Debt Needs," is available on
www.moodys.com. Moody's subscribers can access this report via the link provided at the end of this press release.
According to official data,
the Bank of Russia (CBR)'s FXRs (as of 1 December 2014) are at USD361 billion. This is more than sufficient to cover the country's external debt payment obligations through 2015, which amount to roughly USD130 billion across government, banks and corporate debt, according to Moody's.
That assumption holds even when excluding the USD150 billion of FXRs counted as the central bank reserves that come from the government's two special savings Funds -- the National Wealth Fund (NWF) and Reserve Fund (RF). While these two Funds have specific mandates and are therefore unlikely to be used either to intervene in the foreign exchange market or to finance the government's external debt payments, like the CBR's own reserves, the amounts placed in the central bank contain liquid, marketable assets, that can be utilized if required.
Moody's assumes that in exceptional circumstances the government would be willing to authorize the use of the government's special Funds for paying external debt or other urgent priorities. The need for such action could arise if oil prices were to fall still further, eroding the current account surplus, or if there were a further escalation of tensions/international sanctions leading to a revival of capital flight at a higher pace, which would put additional pressure on the ruble.
The CBR's intention to cap daily interventions in the foreign exchange market (in principle to USD350 million per day, as announced in early November) should help preserve foreign currency reserves for debt servicing, although this decision is being tested by continued ruble volatility.
Moody's notes that, according to official data, central bank FX sales to support the ruble dropped from USD29 billion in October to around USD1 billion in November after the change in policy. Nonetheless, severe pressure on the ruble -- resulting from a steep fall in oil prices in the past week -- poses a significant challenge to the new exchange rate policy. As seen in recent days, the CBR will intervene more aggressively to support the ruble if it believes financial stability is threatened.
Furthermore, as long as the Ukraine crisis persists, Russian entities will have little or no access to foreign exchange on the capital markets, so Moody's expects that private and public companies' reliance on the central bank's reserves will eventually increase