MOSCOW: Russia’s finance ministry is expected to increase its purchases of foreign currency for state reserves to around $2.1 billion in the coming month, a Reuters survey showed on Friday. The finance ministry will announce its buying plan for the period from April 7 to May 7 at 0900 GMT on Monday.

The median forecast from a survey of seven analysts suggested Russia would buy 160 billion roubles ($2.10 billion) worth of foreign exchange in regular purchases on the open market under its fiscal rule. Individual forecasts ranged from 60 to 275 billion roubles. In the previous period, between March 5 and April 6, the ministry had planned to buy 148.1 billion roubles.