The Chinese yuan rose on the Moscow Exchange at the close of trading on Monday, while the ruble fell noticeably amid declining oil prices. The yuan rate stood at 11.942 rubles at 19:00 Moscow time, up 21 kopecks from the previous close.
The Central Bank of Russia raised the official dollar rate from August 4 by 60.5 kopecks to 80.0687 rubles per dollar, and increased the euro rate by 76.64 kopecks to 91.9589 rubles per euro.
Due to a decrease in the representativeness of the daily direct calculation of the euro/ruble rate based on actual conversion operations, caused by low volumes in the ruble/euro currency pair on the domestic foreign exchange market, the Bank of Russia changed the procedure for calculating the official euro/ruble rate. Since June 8, the official euro/ruble rate is determined based on the dollar/ruble rate and the euro/dollar rate of the European Central Bank as of 15:30 Moscow time on the current business day.
"The level of Brent oil prices around $80 per barrel that prevailed in June-July is gradually being reflected in a decrease in the volume of foreign currency earnings coming to the domestic market. Combined with the emerging shortage of Chinese yuan in the market, as indicated by the persistently elevated rates of one-day RUSFARCNY borrowing, this creates prerequisites for the continuation of the trend of ruble depreciation in the short term. At the same time, an important factor for the further dynamics of the foreign exchange market will be the announcement by the Ministry of Finance of the volumes of operations with foreign currency under the budget rule for August," commented Maxim Gladkikh, an analyst at TKB Investment Partners.