Russia’s central bank will assume an oil price of $60 per barrel in its worst-case scenario for monetary policy, Interfax news agency quoted the bank’s First Deputy Governor Ksenia Yudayeva as saying on Wednesday.
Last week, the bank said it was planning to add a “stress scenario” to its three scenarios for its policy outlook.
“The purpose of this scenario is to prepare a shock scenario to work out an action plan which we would implement to limit negative effects,” Interfax cited Yudayeva as saying. Russia’s economy was already stuttering before the European Union and the United States imposed sanctions on Moscow over its role in the crisis in Ukraine this year. It is also heavily dependent on the price of oil, which has fallen. A Reuters poll of economists released on Tuesday showed they expect Russia’s economy will fail to grow at all in 2014 and that inflation will reach a four-year high. Large foreign debt payments by Russian companies shut out of overseas capital markets as well as broad risk aversion after the West imposed sanctions on Russia have also pushed the rouble to new lows almost daily in recent weeks.
The Russian rouble weakened again on Wednesday after the central bank conducted its first overnight rouble-dollar swap operation to boost banking liquidity.
