Russian central bank ready for currency interventions

Russia's central bank said Friday that it is ready to increase foreign currency interventions, if threats emerge to the stability of domestic foreign exchange market.
"The ruble dynamics are considerably affected by changes in oil prices, as well as other parameters determining the terms of Russia's foreign trade," the Central Bank said in a statement.
The bank promised to hold onto currency interventions once there are threats of destabilization.
"The Bank is closely watching the situation of the foreign currency market and analyzing the influence of the ruble exchange rate on other segments of the financial market," said the statement.
Earlier in the day, the Central Bank raised its official exchange rate for the weekend and Monday to 49.322 rubles per U.S. dollar and 61.4108 rubles per euro, Interfax news agency reported.
Oil prices tumbled to their lowest level in more than four years on Thursday and crude continued to drop on Friday, after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) left output quotas unchanged at 30 million barrels a day.
Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Wednesday that unless the ruble's current exchange rates and oil prices are changed, Russian government will suffer a 500-billion-ruble (10 billion dollars) loss in revenue in the draft budget for 2015.
Ruble has lost more than a quarter of its value since the start of 2014 due to weakness in the Russian economy, which was caused by falling oil prices and economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies.