Russia's finance ministry is seen scaling down regular purchases of foreign currency for state reserves in February due to lower oil prices, a Reuters survey showed on Friday. Russia was expected to buy 240 billion roubles ($3.67 billion) worth of foreign exchange in regular purchases on the open market from Feb. 7 to March 6, a median forecast of eight analysts showed.
In the previous period, from Jan. 15 to Feb. 6, the finance ministry planned to buy a total 265.8 billion roubles worth of FX. On a daily basis, purchases are expected to be about 12 billion roubles, the survey showed.
Overall state purchases of FX between Feb. 7 and March 6 are set to be higher, as the central bank has said it will from Feb. 1 carry out foreign currency purchases that it had to postpone in 2018 due to volatility in the rouble.