Russian MinFin says will not conduct operations on currency market in March owing to fiscal rule adjustment
MOSCOW. March 4 (Interfax) - Russia's Finance Ministry has decided not to conduct fiscal rule-based foreign currency and gold sales and purchases on the currency market in March 2026.
This is due to "planned adjustments to the base oil price parameter in budget legislation," the ministry said on Wednesday.
The deferred sale/purchase volume will be adjusted to reflect the new base oil price parameters once operations have resumed, the Finance Ministry said.
The ministry publishes information on oil and gas revenues received by the federal budget, the difference between actual and anticipated oil and gas revenue and the resulting volume of currency/gold purchases or sales for the current monthly period at midday on the third working day of each month. It delayed this publication for the first time in January this year, by one day "due to the completion of the operational report on federal budget execution for 2025.
The MinFin is selling FX and gold under the fiscal rule for a total of 226.8 billion rubles from February 6 to March 5 compared with 192.1 billion rubles in January. Average daily sales are equivalent to 11.9 billion rubles, slightly less than the record 12.8 billion rubles in January due to the calendar factor.
The ministry at the beginning of February forecast an average federal budget oil and gas revenue shortfall of 209.4 billion rubles for the month.
The Central Bank determines daily volume currency transactions based on regular transactions announced by the Finance Ministry adjusted for the volume of transactions related to the replenishment and use National Wealth Fund assets. In the first half of 2026, the CBR will purchase and sell foreign currency based on the volume of transactions under fiscal rule announced by the Finance Ministry adjusted for sales of 4.62 billion rubles per day. The CBR is selling 16.52 billion rubles of currency per day between February 6 and March 5, 2026.
Russia is preparing to tighten its fiscal rule again amid an oil and gas revenue shortfall. "Oil and gas revenue really is falling [as a share of overall budget revenue]. We see this and the Russian government is thinking of tightening the fiscal rule by lowering the cut-off price to keep the National Wealth Fund intact and to ease pressure on the currency market," Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told reporters on February 25.
"This year, we see the need the need to do this fairly promptly, and for the next three years. I think we will look at and adopt such decisions fairly quickly," he said, without detailing the plans to tighten the fiscal rule.
"The main parameters for adjusting the fiscal rule are ready. I believe the government will make such decisions within a couple of weeks," Siluanov said.
The government decided last year to gradually reduce the cut-off price for oil in the fiscal rule by $1 per year, from $60 per barrel to $55 by 2030.
