The Demolition of Russia's Economy

Cuddles · Aug 15, 2023

kashirin said:
So Russia is not collapsing anymore?
They just MAY have to raise taxes.

Russian economy growing faster than any European which sanctioned them to death.
Western block just a group of imbeciles
More...

sprashivat tovarish. Because of quality of post, 25 rubles have been deposited to your account.

Atlantic · Aug 15, 2023

"ruble" ... lol

Atlantic · Aug 15, 2023

https://oilprice.com/Finance/the-Economy/Russias-Rouble-Crisis-Central-Bank-Hikes-Rates-To-12.html

Russia's Rouble Crisis: Central Bank Hikes Rates To 12%
By ZeroHedge - Aug 15, 2023, 9:00 AM CDT

After a significant plunge, the rouble's value saw Russia's central bank increase interest rates from 8.5% to 12% in an emergency decision.

This drastic measure follows an immediate past hike of 100 basis points and comes amidst increasing concerns over inflation, driven partly by a surging rouble and the repercussions of Western sanctions.

Despite the central bank's intervention, analysts remain skeptical about the rouble's stability, noting that the effectiveness of the rate hike depends largely on future oil prices and fiscal policy adjustments.

Russia's central bank unexpectedly hiked its key interest rate by 350 basis points to 12% on Tuesday, an emergency move to try and halt the rouble's recent plunge after a public call from the Kremlin for tighter monetary policy.

This was the second straight increase and the sharpest since the start of the of Ukraine war almost 18 months ago. The emergency meeting came after the rouble tumbled past the 100 threshold against the dollar on Monday, dragged down by the impact of Western sanctions on Russia's balance of trade and as military spending soars.

The rouble pared gains after the decision to stand 0.5% weaker at 98.16, but still significantly above lows near 102 on Monday which had not been hit since the early weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine.

On Monday, president Vladimir Putin's economic adviser Maxim Oreshkin rebuked the central bank, blaming what he called its soft monetary policy for weakening the rouble. Hours after Oreshkin's words, the bank announced the emergency meeting, throwing the currency a lifeline.

The accompanying Bank of Russia statement was considerably shorter than previous ones. Unlike in the press release after the last meeting, the Bank refrained from including the usual hawkish phrase that "the Bank of Russia holds open the prospect of a further increase at its next meeting", suggesting that today's outsized hike is at least partially front-loading the hiking cycle that we and consensus had expected, and leading some analysts to speculate that interest rates had peaked.

"Inflationary pressure is building up," the bank said in the statement adding that "the pass-through of the rouble's depreciation to prices is gaining momentum and inflation expectations are on the rise."

But a little after the decision, the bank issued an additional statement: "In the case of strengthening pro-inflationary risks, an additional increase in the key rate is possible."

The Bank continues to see inflationary pressure building and puts inflation momentum and core inflation momentum in the 3 months to 7 August at 7.6% and 7.1% respectively, well above the 4% target. Similar to the previous statement, the Bank attributes the price pressure to "steady domestic demand surpassing the capacity to expand output" and, unlike in the previous statement, it explicitly links strong domestic demand to the recent depreciation of the Ruble through its positive impact on import growth.

Commenting on the decision, Goldman analyst Clemens Grafe writes that "the Bank's economic assessment remains close to ours. Final domestic demand was, in our view, close to 4% above the pre-Ukraine invasion level in an economy that we estimate saw its potential output contract by a slightly smaller margin over the same period. Hence, stabilizing prices will require a meaningful slowdown in the economy. The strong expansion of domestic demand has also reduced the current account rapidly through higher imports, which in USD terms have risen back to slightly above the level in Q4-2021. Consequently, the current account surplus has fallen to our estimate of 1% of GDP in Q2 from close to 10% in 2022."

He adds that "given the sanctions imposed on Russia, we doubt Russia would be able to fund a current account deficit, nor do we think the CBR would be willing to fund it from its reserves. Thus, we consider a balanced current account as a binding constraint on the economy, and hitting that constraint would lead to sizeable Ruble volatility. While the recent rise in oil prices will likely alleviate that risk somewhat, we interpret the front-loading of the hiking cycle partially as the Bank wanting to ensure it keeps the economy away from that BoP constraint."

As Bloomberg notes, the precipitous decline in the Russian currency has thrust the central bank onto center stage in an increasingly fraught debate over how to steer an economy battered by shrinking export revenues and isolated from international financial markets. And even with rates now at their highest in over a year, the market remains unimpressed as capital seeps out.

“The recent acceleration of ruble weakness might indicate that some cracks in the capital control might have emerged and therefore capital might be able to flee Russia at an increasing speed,” said Ulrich Leuchtmann, head of currency strategy at Commerzbank AG. “The rate hike will hardly convince those who might have a choice to keep their capital inside Russia.”

The central bank last made an emergency rate hike in late February 2022 with a rate raise to 20% in the immediate fallout of Russia's despatching troops to Ukraine. The bank then steadily lowered the cost of borrowing to 7.5% as strong inflation pressure eased in the second half of 2022.

Since its last cut in September 2022, the bank had held rates but steadily increased its hawkish rhetoric, eventually hiking by 100 basis points to 8.5% at its last scheduled meeting in July. The next rate decision is due on Sept. 15.

Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina has won plaudits for her handling of the economy since Russia began what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine, but the plunging rouble and high inflation have put her on the back foot, especially among pro-war nationalists. The Kremlin's public criticism of her monetary policy adds further pressure as Russia heads towards a presidential election in March 2024, with consumers battling rising prices for basic goods.

"While such a depreciation risks boosting inflation, it is also the signal it sends out to the Russian public about the costs of the invasion of Ukraine," said Stuart Cole, chief macro economist at Equiti Capital in London.

"As such, today's decision will likely have had an element of politics behind it as well as economics."

Quoted by Reuters, Andrei Melaschenko, economist at Renaissance Capital in Moscow, said the bank was right to react to inflation risks, but that the meeting, being announced so soon after Kremlin criticism, raised questions about the bank's independence.

"(Nabiullina) has built quite a strong team around her and the central bank has been a strong regulator and I think and the market, both the domestic and international market, sees it that way."

Russia saw double-digit inflation in 2022 and after a deceleration in the spring of 2023 due to that high base effect, annual inflation is now above the central bank's 4% target once more and quickening. In annualized terms on a seasonally adjusted basis, current price growth over the last three months amounted to 7.6% on average, the bank said.

Promsvyazbank analysts said an additional hike may be required if the rouble does not stabilize and that measures to reduce the rouble liquidity surplus were also needed.

Russia's widening budget deficit and stark labor shortage have contributed to rising inflationary pressure this year, but the rouble's rapid slide from around 70 against the dollar at the start of the year to more than 100 on Monday pushed the central bank to act.

The bank, which blames the rouble's slide on Russia's shrinking current account surplus - down 85% year-on-year in January-July - has already tried to limit the rouble's decline.

Last week, it halted the finance ministry's FX purchases to try to reduce volatility, a step that effectively saw Russia abandon its budget rule. Analysts widely agreed that those measures alone were too minimal in scope to significantly support the currency.

Looking ahead, Goldman writes that in its view "the Ruble will continue to weaken unless oil prices rise" and notes that in July, the real effective exchange rate was still about 10% stronger than in Q4-2021 on the Bank of Russia's index, and hence Goldman does not view the Ruble as undervalued.

The transmission of rates to the Ruble is likely to be slow. Given the sanctions, the financial channel is weaker than it used to be and the main transmission of interest rates to the currency would instead be through lower domestic demand and weaker imports, which will take time. Whether today's rate hike will ultimately suffice remains, in our view, primarily a function of fiscal policy and oil prices. Fiscal policy was very loose in H1-2023, with real expenditures of the consolidated budget up 12%yoy. The Ministry of Finance continues to say that spending was considerably front-loaded and that the deficit would be contained at 2% of GDP in 2023 and largely unchanged from last year. While real expenditure growth had indeed fallen to 5%yoy in June, the deficit target would require a sustained tightening of fiscal policy in H2-2023, a correction that seems unusual in a time of military conflict.

Hence, we think it seems more likely that higher oil prices could support the Ruble in the short run, in line with the view of our commodity strategists, who see Brent prices in the mid-US$80s till year-end.

Others agreed: "Today's rate hike will only temporarily slow the bleeding," said Liam Peach, senior emerging markets economist at Capital Economics in London.

"Russia will struggle to attract capital inflows because of sanctions," he said. "And there's little ammunition for FX intervention – the central bank has some unfrozen renminbi assets and gold reserves, but the bar for using these is likely to be high."

By Zerohedge.com

Mercor · Aug 15, 2023

Atlantic said:
https://oilprice.com/Finance/the-Economy/Russias-Rouble-Crisis-Central-Bank-Hikes-Rates-To-12.html

Russia's Rouble Crisis: Central Bank Hikes Rates To 12%
By ZeroHedge - Aug 15, 2023, 9:00 AM CDT

After a significant plunge, the rouble's value saw Russia's central bank increase interest rates from 8.5% to 12% in an emergency decision.

This drastic measure follows an immediate past hike of 100 basis points and comes amidst increasing concerns over inflation, driven partly by a surging rouble and the repercussions of Western sanctions.

Despite the central bank's intervention, analysts remain skeptical about the rouble's stability, noting that the effectiveness of the rate hike depends largely on future oil prices and fiscal policy adjustments.

Russia's central bank unexpectedly hiked its key interest rate by 350 basis points to 12% on Tuesday, an emergency move to try and halt the rouble's recent plunge after a public call from the Kremlin for tighter monetary policy.

This was the second straight increase and the sharpest since the start of the of Ukraine war almost 18 months ago. The emergency meeting came after the rouble tumbled past the 100 threshold against the dollar on Monday, dragged down by the impact of Western sanctions on Russia's balance of trade and as military spending soars.

The rouble pared gains after the decision to stand 0.5% weaker at 98.16, but still significantly above lows near 102 on Monday which had not been hit since the early weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine.

On Monday, president Vladimir Putin's economic adviser Maxim Oreshkin rebuked the central bank, blaming what he called its soft monetary policy for weakening the rouble. Hours after Oreshkin's words, the bank announced the emergency meeting, throwing the currency a lifeline.

The accompanying Bank of Russia statement was considerably shorter than previous ones. Unlike in the press release after the last meeting, the Bank refrained from including the usual hawkish phrase that "the Bank of Russia holds open the prospect of a further increase at its next meeting", suggesting that today's outsized hike is at least partially front-loading the hiking cycle that we and consensus had expected, and leading some analysts to speculate that interest rates had peaked.

"Inflationary pressure is building up," the bank said in the statement adding that "the pass-through of the rouble's depreciation to prices is gaining momentum and inflation expectations are on the rise."

But a little after the decision, the bank issued an additional statement: "In the case of strengthening pro-inflationary risks, an additional increase in the key rate is possible."

The Bank continues to see inflationary pressure building and puts inflation momentum and core inflation momentum in the 3 months to 7 August at 7.6% and 7.1% respectively, well above the 4% target. Similar to the previous statement, the Bank attributes the price pressure to "steady domestic demand surpassing the capacity to expand output" and, unlike in the previous statement, it explicitly links strong domestic demand to the recent depreciation of the Ruble through its positive impact on import growth.

Commenting on the decision, Goldman analyst Clemens Grafe writes that "the Bank's economic assessment remains close to ours. Final domestic demand was, in our view, close to 4% above the pre-Ukraine invasion level in an economy that we estimate saw its potential output contract by a slightly smaller margin over the same period. Hence, stabilizing prices will require a meaningful slowdown in the economy. The strong expansion of domestic demand has also reduced the current account rapidly through higher imports, which in USD terms have risen back to slightly above the level in Q4-2021. Consequently, the current account surplus has fallen to our estimate of 1% of GDP in Q2 from close to 10% in 2022."

He adds that "given the sanctions imposed on Russia, we doubt Russia would be able to fund a current account deficit, nor do we think the CBR would be willing to fund it from its reserves. Thus, we consider a balanced current account as a binding constraint on the economy, and hitting that constraint would lead to sizeable Ruble volatility. While the recent rise in oil prices will likely alleviate that risk somewhat, we interpret the front-loading of the hiking cycle partially as the Bank wanting to ensure it keeps the economy away from that BoP constraint."

As Bloomberg notes, the precipitous decline in the Russian currency has thrust the central bank onto center stage in an increasingly fraught debate over how to steer an economy battered by shrinking export revenues and isolated from international financial markets. And even with rates now at their highest in over a year, the market remains unimpressed as capital seeps out.

“The recent acceleration of ruble weakness might indicate that some cracks in the capital control might have emerged and therefore capital might be able to flee Russia at an increasing speed,” said Ulrich Leuchtmann, head of currency strategy at Commerzbank AG. “The rate hike will hardly convince those who might have a choice to keep their capital inside Russia.”

The central bank last made an emergency rate hike in late February 2022 with a rate raise to 20% in the immediate fallout of Russia's despatching troops to Ukraine. The bank then steadily lowered the cost of borrowing to 7.5% as strong inflation pressure eased in the second half of 2022.

Since its last cut in September 2022, the bank had held rates but steadily increased its hawkish rhetoric, eventually hiking by 100 basis points to 8.5% at its last scheduled meeting in July. The next rate decision is due on Sept. 15.

Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina has won plaudits for her handling of the economy since Russia began what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine, but the plunging rouble and high inflation have put her on the back foot, especially among pro-war nationalists. The Kremlin's public criticism of her monetary policy adds further pressure as Russia heads towards a presidential election in March 2024, with consumers battling rising prices for basic goods.

"While such a depreciation risks boosting inflation, it is also the signal it sends out to the Russian public about the costs of the invasion of Ukraine," said Stuart Cole, chief macro economist at Equiti Capital in London.

"As such, today's decision will likely have had an element of politics behind it as well as economics."

Quoted by Reuters, Andrei Melaschenko, economist at Renaissance Capital in Moscow, said the bank was right to react to inflation risks, but that the meeting, being announced so soon after Kremlin criticism, raised questions about the bank's independence.

"(Nabiullina) has built quite a strong team around her and the central bank has been a strong regulator and I think and the market, both the domestic and international market, sees it that way."

Russia saw double-digit inflation in 2022 and after a deceleration in the spring of 2023 due to that high base effect, annual inflation is now above the central bank's 4% target once more and quickening. In annualized terms on a seasonally adjusted basis, current price growth over the last three months amounted to 7.6% on average, the bank said.

Promsvyazbank analysts said an additional hike may be required if the rouble does not stabilize and that measures to reduce the rouble liquidity surplus were also needed.

Russia's widening budget deficit and stark labor shortage have contributed to rising inflationary pressure this year, but the rouble's rapid slide from around 70 against the dollar at the start of the year to more than 100 on Monday pushed the central bank to act.

The bank, which blames the rouble's slide on Russia's shrinking current account surplus - down 85% year-on-year in January-July - has already tried to limit the rouble's decline.

Last week, it halted the finance ministry's FX purchases to try to reduce volatility, a step that effectively saw Russia abandon its budget rule. Analysts widely agreed that those measures alone were too minimal in scope to significantly support the currency.

Looking ahead, Goldman writes that in its view "the Ruble will continue to weaken unless oil prices rise" and notes that in July, the real effective exchange rate was still about 10% stronger than in Q4-2021 on the Bank of Russia's index, and hence Goldman does not view the Ruble as undervalued.

The transmission of rates to the Ruble is likely to be slow. Given the sanctions, the financial channel is weaker than it used to be and the main transmission of interest rates to the currency would instead be through lower domestic demand and weaker imports, which will take time. Whether today's rate hike will ultimately suffice remains, in our view, primarily a function of fiscal policy and oil prices. Fiscal policy was very loose in H1-2023, with real expenditures of the consolidated budget up 12%yoy. The Ministry of Finance continues to say that spending was considerably front-loaded and that the deficit would be contained at 2% of GDP in 2023 and largely unchanged from last year. While real expenditure growth had indeed fallen to 5%yoy in June, the deficit target would require a sustained tightening of fiscal policy in H2-2023, a correction that seems unusual in a time of military conflict.

Hence, we think it seems more likely that higher oil prices could support the Ruble in the short run, in line with the view of our commodity strategists, who see Brent prices in the mid-US$80s till year-end.

Others agreed: "Today's rate hike will only temporarily slow the bleeding," said Liam Peach, senior emerging markets economist at Capital Economics in London.

"Russia will struggle to attract capital inflows because of sanctions," he said. "And there's little ammunition for FX intervention – the central bank has some unfrozen renminbi assets and gold reserves, but the bar for using these is likely to be high."

By Zerohedge.com
More...

Will this help the Ruble

BRICS countries planning new Gold-Backed currency in August

As tensions with Russia and China escalate, the so-called BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) are preparing to strike a blow against U.S. dollar hegemony.

Last week, the Russian Embassy in Kenya declared, "The BRICS countries are planning to introduce a new trading currency, which will be backed by gold.”

Atlantic · Aug 15, 2023

Mercor said:
Will this help the Ruble
More...

we will see ...

Atlantic · Aug 19, 2023

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kremlins-top-brass-trying-pass-134039656.html

The Kremlin's top brass are trying to pass the buck over the ruble's collapse.
This rare public infighting shows just how precarious Russia's wartime economy is.

gwb-trading · Aug 21, 2023

The resilience of Russia's stock market and its economy is a complete mirage masking deeper pain, Yale researchers say
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/resilience-russias-stock-market-economy-201501117.html

Businessman · Aug 21, 2023

Russians got richer last year even as the war in Ukraine raged on, while the US and Europe lost trillions of dollars, UBS reported.

Russia added $600 billion of total wealth, the Swiss bank found in its annual Global Wealth Report, published Tuesday.

The number of Russian millionaires also rose by about 56,000 to 408,000 in 2022, while the number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals — people worth over $50 million — jumped by nearly 4,500.

https://www.businessinsider.com/war...billionaires-uhnw-wealth-ubs-2023-8?r=US&IR=T

gwb-trading · Aug 21, 2023

Businessman said:
Russians got richer last year even as the war in Ukraine raged on, while the US and Europe lost trillions of dollars, UBS reported.

Russia added $600 billion of total wealth, the Swiss bank found in its annual Global Wealth Report, published Tuesday.

The number of Russian millionaires also rose by about 56,000 to 408,000 in 2022, while the number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals — people worth over $50 million — jumped by nearly 4,500.

https://www.businessinsider.com/war...billionaires-uhnw-wealth-ubs-2023-8?r=US&IR=T
More...

Yet none of their military equipment will work because the Russian oligarchs stole everything that was not nailed down.

Atlantic · Aug 21, 2023

https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/In...nds-Waves-Across-Central-Asias-Economies.html

Ruble Plunge Sends Waves Across Central Asia's Economies
By RFE/RL staff - Aug 21, 2023, 1:00 PM CDT

Central Asian countries, particularly Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, heavily rely on remittances from migrants working in Russia, making them vulnerable to the ruble's fluctuations.

The ruble's fall has been accelerated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the resulting economic conditions, despite strong oil prices which previously aided the ruble's recovery.

If the ruble continues its downward trend, many migrants might consider leaving Russia, which could further impact the remittances received by Central Asian countries.

Bakytbek Ysmanov, a 64-year-old native of Kyrgyzstan, has been working in Russia for 15 years.

In the past 12 months he has watched the ruble fall by 28 percent against his homeland's national currency, the som, with that slide in value picking up pace this summer.

That is a big problem for Ysmanov because he needs to pay off a mortgage in soms that he has on a home in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh.

"Maybe I will have to work 15 hours [a day now] and find other jobs, too. Maybe I could work construction for four or five hours and then go out to drive a taxi again," Ysmanov told RFE/RL's Central Asian Migrant Unit.

"You work until 11 or 12 at night. When you feel sleepy, you just wash your face with cold water and continue working. What can I do? I have a mortgage to pay," Ysmanov said, adding that he hoped Kyrgyz banks would soon offer debt prolongation options for migrants working in Russia.

This week the plummeting ruble showed a flicker of life on the back of a giant emergency rate hike overseen by Russia's central bank after it had dipped below the psychologically important threshold of 100 rubles to the dollar.

And it's not just officials in the Kremlin who breathed a sigh of relief.

For Central Asian countries, the ruble has outsized importance due to the region's level of economic integration with Moscow and because of the millions of migrants from the region -- chiefly from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan -- that earn money in Russia.

But while the currency might have reached its bottom in the near term, stabilizing at around 93 to the dollar after the hike, its longer-term health remains a major source of concern for a landlocked region perennially exposed to Russian crises.

In the meantime, the cheap ruble is already wreaking havoc in Central Asian economies and contributing to a significant fall in the amount of money sent back to the region.

Between Depreciation And The Devil

The Russian currency's monthslong decline stretching back to the end of last year is partly due to government spending on the war in Ukraine, where Russian forces have been in a slow retreat since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022 as they now battle a fierce Ukrainian counteroffensive.

What makes this particular ruble depreciation so notable, however, is that it comes at a time of robust prices for oil, which have traditionally helped the currency bounce back.

On August 15, Russia's central bank hiked its base rate by an eyebrow-raising 3.5 percentage points to reach 12 percent, helping to stop the ruble's rot.

But there has been no spectacular recovery like there was in the weeks and months immediately after Moscow launched its war against Ukraine.

And the days of the ruble going from freefall to the world's best-performing currency overnight -- a development attributed to stringent capital controls and a trade surplus buoyed by high prices for Russian exports -- now seem a very long way away.

Indeed, the ruble is so cheap that it is posing a dilemma for neighboring countries caught between a potential flood of Russian imports and politically contentious decisions to allow their own currencies to follow suit.

Oil-rich Kazakhstan's tenge depreciated 6 percent on August 16-17, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reported, with the rate reaching 467 tenge to the dollar at currency exchanges on August 17.

In the recent past, the tenge has traced the ruble's performance quite tightly.

Kazakhstan is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union dominated by Russia and, like Moscow, Astana's growth prospects are tied to prices for its energy exports.

But last year saw the tenge "successfully decouple" from the ruble, in the words of the economics-focused Telegram channel Tengenomika, as Russia's share of Kazakhstan's imports fell from over 40 percent in 2021 to 26.7 percent in 2022.

How long that can be sustained is unclear.

In a Facebook post this week, Kazakh political commentator Serik Belgibay fumed that the ruble was "burying" Kazakhstan's economy and leaving the country with "two options, both bad."

"[We can] leave everything as it is. Then the cheap ruble will gradually kill domestic production. Or [we can] allow the tenge to devalue to the level of five tenge to the ruble. This would further impoverish our citizens and cause prices to rise," Belgibay vented.

In Uzbekistan, the cost of the dollar at currency exchanges has risen around 3 percent in the last week, with the central bank blaming "significant depreciation of the currencies of [Uzbekistan's] main trade partners."

Uzbekistan's som currency "will be relatively stable till the end of the year and in the medium-term perspective," the central bank predicted rather optimistically.

Decision Time For Migrants?

In more impoverished Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, national currencies have lost less than 1 percent of their value against the dollar since the beginning of the summer, while posting gains of around 14 percent against the ruble.

But for many families in two of the world's most remittance-dependent nations, where cash transfers from Russia typically equal more than a quarter of the GDP, the weak ruble is nothing to celebrate.

On August 15, citing interviews with Uzbek diaspora leaders, the Russian business daily Vedomosti speculated that a potentially massive migrant exodus from Russia might be imminent if the ruble doesn't start rising in value soon.

The publication quoted an online poll of 23,000 mostly Uzbek migrants in which over half said that they were actively considering this option.

Recent years have contained no shortage of unpleasant surprises for Central Asians working in Russia.

The pandemic was brutal, with sudden layoffs sending nationals from the region back home in their tens of thousands to economies where jobs were few.

But those disruptions have arguably been eclipsed by blowback from the Ukraine invasion, which has seen migrants aggressively targeted in a Russian military recruitment drive.

The ruble, for a time, was a bright spot.

Having plummeted to around 150 to the dollar in the weeks following the invasion, the currency soared well above its prewar level of around 75 to the dollar, peaking at just over 52 in June 2022.

This contributed to record-breaking remittances for Central Asian countries, confounding predictions made by the World Bank and other international institutions at the beginning of the war.

But 2023 is probably going to be a different story.

While not all of Central Asia's central banks publish regular data on money transfers, the latest data suggest that families across the region are already receiving much less from their relatives abroad than they did last year.

This month, for instance, the Kyrgyz central bank published figures that showed $163.5 million was transferred to Kyrgyzstan from foreign countries in June 2023, with transfers from Russia accounting for more than 90 percent of the total.

That figure is just over half of the figure posted in the same month last year and also significantly smaller than figures for more typical years like 2021 ($266.9 million), 2020 ($277.9 million) and 2019 ($191.6 million).