Russia’s significant foreign exchange reserves make the country immune to Western pressure.
This opinion was expressed by the senior business editor of the newspaper Die Welt Holger Zschepitz.
Western politicians are discussing the possibility of tougher economic sanctions against Russia, but the situation has changed and is significantly different from the state of affairs in previous years, the article says.
“Russia has the fifth largest financial reserves in the world and the sixth largest public debt. The government is in a comfortable position, being not too vulnerable in geopolitical terms,” Chris Weafer, a strategist at the independent consulting company Macro-Advisory, said in the publication.
During the crisis, Russia has significantly increased its reserves. As Zschepitz recalls, their volume recently reached a record high of $ 600 billion. This happened even despite the continued anti-Russian sanctions and not the highest oil prices, which, according to the author, are the main source of Russia’s income.
The journalist believes that such successful results have been brought about by the economic policy of President Vladimir Putin. According to Tsschepitz, the Russian leader “has a number of very important principles and beliefs in the economic sphere.” Of these, the author especially highlights the strategy to build up financial reserves and the desire to avoid excessive debt burden. The expert also emphasizes the importance of restructuring Russian foreign exchange reserves, namely the abandonment of the dollar in favor of increasing gold reserves.
Thanks to all these actions, according to Zschepitz, Russian reserves were able to reach record levels. The author points out that this year alone, the state treasury received an additional $ 47 billion, and the share of gold (taking into account the rise in prices for it) amounted to about 38 billion.
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