Exporters continue to repatriate and sell foreign exchange revenue, exceeding threshold - Nabiullina

MOSCOW. Oct 31 (Interfax) - Large exporters continue to meet the requirements for the obligatory repatriation and sale of a portion of their foreign exchange revenue and are even exceeding the established thresholds, Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said.

"I can say that despite the reduction in the sales threshold for total revenue, a large number of companies are repatriating and selling even more than the threshold because they need to incur their expenses in rubles here and so on," Nabiullina said at a joint meeting of the State Duma Financial Market, Budget and Tax and Economic Policy Committees.

The Central Bank of Russia's analysis indicates that the impact of this measure on the exchange rate is low, she said.

The requirement for mandatory repatriation of currency and sale of foreign currency proceeds was introduced by presidential decree in October 2023 and was set to last for six months. It was later extended to April 30, 2025. Exporters were initially obligated to deposit in their accounts in authorized banks at least 80% of the currency earnings received from foreign trade contracts and sell at least 90% of this volume on the domestic market. In late June, the government announced a reduction of this threshold from 80% to 60%, and in July the threshold was reduced to 40%, that is, exporters will be obligated to repatriate 36% of their external earnings. In addition, there was originally a provision stating that no less than 50% of the funds received, regardless of the currency, in accordance with each export contract must be sold within no more than 30 days from the date of receipt. This threshold was lowered to 25% in October 2024.

The requirement applies to 43 groups of companies operating in the fuel and energy complex, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, chemical and forestry industries, and grain farming.

Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseyev said in June that companies were meeting the requirements of the decree almost 100%, and some exporters were even exceeding them. "The majority of our exporters are law-abiding participants in foreign economic activity. Almost all of them return foreign currency and sell it," head of Russia's Federal Financing Monitoring Service (Rosfinmonitoring) Yury Chikhanchin said.