Economics
Putin’s Big Dollar Dump Cost Russia $8 Billion in One Year
- Central bank missed out on 6.5% rally in U.S. currency
- Russia has been trying to reduce vulnerability to sanctions
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The first year of President Vladimir Putin’s experiment in diversifying away from the U.S. dollar cost Russia about $7.7 billion in potential returns.
Russia’s central bank added exposure to underperforming currencies such as the euro and yuan just as it missed out on a 6.5% rally in the greenback. If it had maintained the previous dollar-heavy structure of it $531 billion reserves, gains for the year through March would have totaled around 3.8%, according to Bloomberg calculations.