Reaching the climax of a personal attack on Russia's Central Bank Chairwoman Elvira Nabiullina in a debate in the State Duma on Monday, Communist deputy Vyacheslav Tetyokin did not hold back. Nabiullina, he said, was "the most expensive woman in the history of our country."
Tetyokin was incensed by the more than $70 billion of foreign currency reserves the Central Bank has burned through defending the ruble this year as it has been battered by Western sanctions on Moscow and a steadily sliding oil price.
In a much-anticipated monetary policy switch, the Central Bank announced Monday that it was ceasing interventions on currency market except in the case of threats to financial stability: meaning the ruble was now fully free-floating. Criticism of 51-year-old Nabiullina, an economist born near the Ural mountains with a reported passion for French poetry, has stepped up in recent weeks as the Russian currency's dramatic volatility prompts uncomfortable recollections of the country's traumatic 1998 default. The ruble has weakened over 30 percent against the U.S. dollar since the beginning of the year and, in a crash that caused U.S. dollar supplies to dry up at retail banks, plunged 10 percent in 48 hours to a record low of 48.6 versus the greenback on Nov. 7.
INC News, 15/11/2014
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