Russian rouble weakens on first day of reduced yuan sales by central bank

MOSCOW: The Russian rouble weakened against the dollar and China’s yuan on Friday, the first day of a reduction in sales of the Chinese currency by the central bank that was flagged up earlier this week.

At 0900 GMT, the rouble had weakened by 2.1% to 89.90 against the dollar and was down 0.1% against yuan, LSEG data showed.

The rouble weakened by 0.4% against the yuan in trade on the Moscow Stock Exchange.

The rouble fell on Sept. 4 to its lowest level against the yuan since April 19 after the new outlook for forex interventions suggested that the central bank would cut its sales of the Chinese currency to 0.2 billion per day from Sept. 6 from 7.28 billion per day previously.

Major banks said on Sept. 5 that there was a liquidity shortage in the yuan market.

Yuan liquidity is mainly provided by the central bank through daily sales and one-day yuan swaps, as well as through currency sales by exporting companies.

Trading in major currencies in Russia has shifted to the over-the-counter (OTC) market, obscuring price data, since Western sanctions on the Moscow Exchange and its clearing agent, the National Clearing Centre, were introduced on June 12.

The spreads between yuan rates in the OTC market and the stock exchange have been volatile in recent weeks, reflecting ongoing problems in international transactions with the Chinese currency that have hampered trade between the two countries.

Russian rouble mostly unchanged against US dollar

One-day rouble-dollar futures, which trade on the Moscow Exchange and are a guide for OTC market rates, were down 0.5% at 89.54.

The central bank’s official exchange rate, which it calculates using OTC data, was set at 89.70 to the dollar.

The rouble was 2.2% weaker at 100.24 against the euro, LSEG data showed.

Brent crude oil, a global benchmark for Russia’s main export, was down 0.1% at $72.62 with investors exercising caution ahead of key US employment data as they weighed a big withdrawal from US crude inventories and a delay to production hikes by OPEC+ producers.