The Bank of Russia can resume buying currency for reserves already in the second half of this year. Commentary from Nina Kozlova in “Rossiyskaya gazeta".

Bloomberg conducted a survey among 21 economists on this topic. The share of respondents expecting currency purchases in the second half of 2017 increased from 37 to 44 percent. At the same time, one in four believes that the regulator will wait until 2019 or longer. A third of economists believe that the catalyst will be the exchange rate of 50 - 55 rubles per dollar, when others are not ready to make so accurate predictions as to the trigger.

Nina Kozlova

General Director of FinExpertiza

- Coming back to foreign exchange interventions and, as a consequence, devaluation of the ruble will in any case protect Russian producers from imported products. But the weakening of the ruble due to interventions is likely to be unproportional to the budget needs, and the exchange rate may amount to 65 - 72 rubles per dollar.