Although the Russians are generally well-informed about the movement of exchange rate, they are not particularly agitated about the U.S. dollar depreciation.
Photo: Sergey Mikheev
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Ruble Fails to Turn Into Saving Means
According to the polls, some 92 percent of the Russians tend to keep money in rubles. The recent growth in euro popularity is temporary, economic analysts forecast. Besides, the unpredictable inflation coupled with the confidence that the growth in income will continue prompt the nation to buy at large to the detriment of saving.
The nation’s trust in ruble is growing, signaled the poll of All-Russia’s Center for Public Opinion Studies. The overwhelming majority (92 percent) prefer to keep money in rubles (less than 89 percent in 2006). At the same time, the U.S. dollar is losing popularity. Only 2 percent of respondents said they saved money in the U.S. currency, although 7 percent used to do it in 2006. In preference of the nation, the dollar is being replaced by the European currency (6 percent favor euro now vs. 2 percent in 2006).
Judging by the CBR reports about the decline in the ready money of the population, the cash was to end long ago - each Russian was said to have less than $100 in the middle of 2007. At the same time, the net purchase of foreign currency (mostly euro) reached $2.1 billion in the first quarter of this year.
“Despite the temporarily growth in currency savings [euro], the instability of global markets won’t allow this trend to strengthen,” said the report of Development Center.
The lack of interest of the nation in foreign currency is no surprise for sociological analysts. Indeed, de-dollarization has nearly completed in the country and, although the nation still favors euro, this European currency is affected by the negative aura of the U.S. dollar, promoting the Russians to stake on the ruble.
The Russians are generally well-informed about the movement of exchange rate, but they are not particularly agitated about the U.S. dollar depreciation. Today’s concern is the choice between saving and buying actually. The trend is that if a Russian has money to buy, he/she always buys. The root cause of consumer boom is, perhaps, the skyrocketing and unpredictable inflation. According to the CBR, the amount of individual credits (9.9 trillion rubles) is currently nearly twice as much as the deposits (5.2 trillion rubles).
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 08, 2008
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