Russian rouble recovers after dipping to weakest since Aug. 15

15 to combat the rising inflation accompanying a weaker rouble, having hiked its key rate by 350 basis points on Aug. 15. The central bank has also said it would sell 150 billion roubles' ($1.5 billion) worth of foreign exchange between Sept.

The Russian rouble was slightly firmer in late trading on Friday, having briefly dipped as far as 98.65 to the dollar, its weakest level since just before the central bank announced an emergency rate hike on Aug. 15.

At 1445 GMT, the rouble was 0.3% stronger at 97.94 to the dollar and had gained 0.3% to trade at 105.09 to the euro. It had firmed 0.9% against the yuan to 13.30. Traders said the rouble was beginning to gain support from sales of foreign exchange.

"It's possible that large exporters have increased the sale of foreign currency at a very favourable rate for them due to fears of a rate increase and the introduction of tough measures by the central bank," said Alexey Antonov at Alor Broker. The bank has declined to rule out another rate increase at its regular policy meeting on Sept. 15 to combat the rising inflation accompanying a weaker rouble, having hiked its key rate by 350 basis points on Aug. 15.

The central bank has also said it would sell 150 billion roubles' ($1.5 billion) worth of foreign exchange between Sept. 14 and Sept. 22, equating to 21.4 billion roubles a day, up from 2.3 billion roubles previously, in connection with the planned redemption of $3 billion worth of Russian eurobonds on Sept. 16. Brent crude oil, a global benchmark for Russia's main export and source of budget revenues, was up 0.9% at $90.71 a barrel.

Russia has cut its production in tandem with Saudi Arabia to shore up oil prices, which have already been boosted by output cuts by the wide OPEC+ exporters' club. Russia has also reduced its budget deficit, another source of rouble weakness. Russia's federal budget deficit narrowed to 2.361 trillion roubles ($24.12 billion), or 1.5% of gross domestic product (GDP), in January-August 2023, the Finance Ministry said.

Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said the budget deficit for 2023 would be around 2% of GDP, as forecast. Russian stock indexes were slightly weaker.

The dollar-denominated RTS index was down around 0.1% at 1,103 points at 1505 GMT, while the rouble-based MOEX Russian index was 0.6% lower at 3,150 points.