普京對美國製裁的回應是更自立的經濟

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Putin’s Answer to U.S. Sanctions Is More Economic Isolation

Natasha Doff and Anya Andrianova

Bloomberg Mon., April 19, 2021, 6:44 a.m.

(Bloomberg) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to respond to the latest round of U.S. sanctions threats as he has to past ones: by speeding his drive to make Russia’s economy more self-sufficient.

In the seven years since Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Putin’s government and central bank have stripped back the country’s exposure to dollars, shifted assets out of the U.S. and sold a smaller share of its debt to foreigners.

“The Americans are saying: be careful or we could do more, but Russia is just going to continue down the path toward economic autarky,” said Elina Ribakova, deputy chief economist at the Institute of International Finance in Washington.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is keeping the threat of sanctions hanging over Russia even after a sweeping round of penalties imposed last week. On Sunday, the U.S. warned of “consequences” if jailed opposition activist Alexey Navalny dies in prison.

The share of gold in Russia’s $581 billion international reserves jumped above dollars for the first time on record last year following a multi-year drive to reduce exposure to U.S. assets. The precious metal made up 24% of the central bank’s stockpile as of the end of September 2020, the latest date for which the breakdown is available. The share of dollar assets was 22%, down from more than 40% in 2018.

That trend also shows up in the share of Russia’s international reserves held in the U.S., which plummeted to just under 7% by the end of September, down from about 30% before the Crimea annexation. Most of the shift happened in the second quarter of 2018 just after sanctions on aluminum giant United Co. Rusal revealed how vulnerable Russia was to sanctions.

Of course, there’s only so much that Russia can do without cutting itself off entirely from the global economy. But officials in Washington are also restrained by the fact that if they go too far (as they did with the Rusal sanctions that were later revoked), they risk sending tremors through global markets.

Acting on a pledge by Putin to “de-dollarize” trade, Russia has been slowly cutting back on use of the greenback in its exports with the European Union, China and India. The euro has almost overtaken the dollar in Russia’s trade with the EU and has already surpassed it in exports to China. About two-thirds of Russia’s exports to India, meanwhile, are paid for in rubles.

Last week’s penalties included a ban on purchases of bonds on the primary market, so the next big targets could be secondary-market debt and Russian banks’ access to the financial messaging system used for most international money transfers. Russia is already looking for alternatives to the system, known as SWIFT, to make itself less vulnerable, though attempts so far haven’t led to much.

One reason the Finance Ministry wasn’t too concerned about the latest sanctions measure on government debt is that Russia has mostly been selling to local banks at its weekly auctions anyway. Borrowing was ramped up during the pandemic even though foreign demand was weak, which increased the overall size of the market and pushed down the share of foreigners.

U.S. banks can still buy new debt on the secondary market after the penalties come into force in mid-June. Russia is “well positioned” for a near term market disruption because it has a high cash buffer and demand from local banks is “robust,” Fitch Ratings said in a research note published late on Friday.

Translation

 （彭博社）- 俄羅斯總統弗拉基米爾·普京（Vladimir Putin）可能會像過去那樣應對最新一輪的美國製裁威脅：加快通過其努力使俄羅斯經濟更加自給自足。

自從俄羅斯吞併克里米亞以來的七年中，普京政府和中央銀行削減了該國的美元敞口，將資產轉移到美國以外，並將一小部分債務賣給了外國人。

華盛頓國際金融研究所副首席經濟學家Elina Ribakova說：“美國人在說：要小心，否則我們可以做得更多，但是俄羅斯將繼續走上自給自足的道路。”

即使在上週實施全面製裁之後，美國總統拜登政府仍繼續對俄羅斯施加製裁威脅。在週日美國警告, 如果被捕的反對派激進分子Alexey Navalny死在監獄中，会有 “後果” 。

在多年減少美國資產敞口的推動下，在俄羅斯5810億元的國際儲備中, 黃金份額記錄去年首次超過美元。截至2020年9月，這是提供細分數據的最新近日期，貴金屬佔央行庫存的24％。美元資產的份額為22％，低於2018年的超過40％。

俄羅斯在美國持有的國際儲備中的份額也顯示出這種趨勢。到9月底，這一份額從克里米亞吞併前的約30％下降至不到7％。大部分轉變發生在2018年第二季度，就在對鋁業巨United Co. Rusal被實施制裁之後, 揭示了俄羅斯多麼容易受到製裁。

當然，在不完全脫離全球經濟的情況下，俄羅斯可以做的只有很多事情。但是華盛頓官員也受到以下事實的束縛：如果他們走得太遠（就像他們制裁Rusal但後來撤銷），他們就有可能有震動全球市場的危險。

普京承諾將貿易“降低美元”，因此俄羅斯一直在逐步減少對歐盟，中國和印度的出口中使用美元。在俄羅斯與歐盟的貿易中，使用歐元幾乎已經超過使用美元，在對中國的出口歐元已經超過了美元。與此同時，俄羅斯對印度的出口中約有三分之二是用盧布支付的。

上週的處罰措施包括禁止在一級市場購買債券，因此下一個主要目標可能是二級市場債務以及俄羅斯銀行可以使用大多數國際匯款使用的金融消息系統。俄羅斯已經在尋找一種稱為SWIFT的系統替代品，以減輕自身的脆弱性，儘管迄今為止的嘗試, 並沒有帶來太大的進展。

財政部不太擔心最新的政府債務制裁措施的原因之一是，無論如何，俄羅斯在每週的拍賣中, 政府債務大多都賣給了本地銀行。儘管外國需求疲軟，但在病毒大流行期間借款增加了，這增加了市場的整體規模, 並壓低了外國人的份額。

在懲罰措施於6月中旬生效後，美國銀行仍可以在二級市場上購買新債券。惠譽國際評級在周五晚些時候發布的一份研究報告中表示，對於短期內市場會受到干擾, 俄羅斯是處於“很好位置”, 它 擁有良好的現金緩衝，而當地銀行的需求是“強勁” 的。

       So, in response to the sanction by the US, Putin’s government and its central bank have scaled down the country’s exposure to dollars, shifted assets out of the U.S. and sold its debt to foreigners.

Note: SWIFT is Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications system. It is a vast messaging network used by banks and other financial institutions to quickly, accurately, and securely send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions. (https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/050515/how-swift-system-works.asp)