The ruble can be weakened by the increased import volume
The Federal Customs Service of Russia has published the data concerning the import from the remote abroad during the period since January to May of 2011. The amount of import in the money meaning has reached $96,272 billion and has increased comparing to the same period of 2010 year by 48,1%.
In May of the current year the prices of the oil are stably high and the ruble is in a quite steady position this is why the picture of the import is quite demonstrative: despite the fact that investments in the Russian economy are growing up very slowly the share of the investment goods and goods of the industrial demand is increasing very significantly in the structure of the imported production.
Before the increase of rate of import growth was explained by the recovery of demand on the imported automobiles as well as by upturn of the prices of provisions, but nowadays structure of the import by the largest items has obviously investment nature. The main factors are the 75% growth of the import of machinery manufacturing equipment in whose structure the largest item is mechanical equipment; in the import of chemical production increased by 45% the most noticeable was the growth of import of rubbers and polymers (by more than 59% comparing to 2010 year) as well as base products of organic and inorganic chemistry (by 75%). In the same time the import of clothes hasn’t grew and of footwear has decreased, but the high speed of the growth of import of textile, cotton and artificial fiber (1,6, 1,5 times and by 34,7% respectively); the import of man-made yarns has increased by 35,2%.
The import of provision has also grown due to the import of meat and bird (increase by 44, 4%). The picture of the import of the other products is following: the import of a cereal crop increased in 3,4 times, vegetables – in 1,5 times, seed-oil – by 42,2%, fruits – by 40,2%, fish and dairy products – by 18,6%.
Imports of goods increase faster than the analysts expected, but in general they forecasted such course of events. According to some evaluations the registered import by customs in May 2011 will add to the value of April up to $1 billion. Thus the value of total import volume in May can reach about $28 billion. Herewith experts think that in case of decreasing of the prices of the Brent crude until $104 p/b there’s a risk of occurring of deficit of the foreign currency while capital outflows amounted $4 billion. Consequently the growth of the import will slow due to the smooth devaluation of ruble – its course of exchange could decrease until 31,30 rub/$. In the same time the level of price of $100-105 p/b is a “price of the equilibrium” of the federal budget of the Russian Federation without deficit.
