Page 19 - bne_newspaper_April_5_2019

Eastern Europe
April 5, 2019 www.intellinews.com I Page 19
Russia maintains a healthy goods trade surplus
Ben Aris in Berlin
There was little change in Russia’s trade flows in January as Russia continues to run a very healthy trade surplus for goods, the latest Rosstat data shows. China continues to dominate Russia’s foreign trade, while imports from Ukraine continue to slide; Russia enjoys a large $4bn trade surplus with its erstwhile rival.
Russia's current account surplus reached $22.3bn in January-February 2019, according to preliminary data from the Central Bank of Russia (CBR). This implies a $10.5bn surplus in February alone and beats the $20.6bn surplus seen for the first two months of 2018.
While the average price of Brent oil in January- February was almost 8% year-on-year lower, the weaker ruble (down by 17% against the US dollar and by 13% against the bi-currency basket of $0.55 and €0.45) resulted in some decrease in imports, Sberbank CIB commented on March 13.
As reported by bne IntelliNews, capital outflow from the private sector reached $18.6bn in January-February. In February alone, the outflow stood at $8.2bn, jumping from $2.7bn.
"Still, the February capital outflow figure was below the $10.5bn registered in January," Sberbank notes, suggesting that "one reason for the lower capital outflow from the private sector was the increase in FX purchases by the Central Bank of Russia, which bought $4.2bn last month, compared with just $2.8bn in January."
The CBR too attributed the outflow to cutting foreign debt by the Russian banks and simultaneous piling of export cash on accounts. In the first half of 2018 this was neutralised by the regular purchases of foreign currency by
the finance ministry on the open market, which was halted in the second half of 2018 following sanction-induced market volatility. Sberbank CIB