The Russian Central Bank blew a whopping $15.7billion last week in a continuous bid to defend its currency and support local banks. Russia now has about $398.9billion as at December 19, 2014 a 22% drop from what it was in January. It had $414.6billion as at December 12. 2014.
The Russian currency, Rubble is currently at its worst slump since 1988 following a sharp decline in crude oil prices. Russia also faces huge sanctions from the West over the Ukraine crisis. Russia is heavily dependent on oil and supplies over 10% of the world’s Crude Oil.
Russia surprised everyone when it raised its rates on December 15th to 17% all in the bid to stop the ruble from sliding further. It has also promised not to ask Russian businessmen who repatriate dollars where they got it from.
The ruble has lost about 27% against the dollar during the past three months, the worst performance among more than 170 currencies tracked by Bloomberg.
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