Russian ruble slides to record low in Moscow trading

The prolonged ruble fall has prompted speculation that the Russian Central Bank will step in to help buoy up the currency.

(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko). A man walks past at an exchange office sign showing the currency exchange rates of the Russian ruble, us dollar, euro and Ukrainian Hrivna in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016. The dollar-denominated RTS share index was down 4.6 percent to 629 points, while the rouble-based MICEX was 1.8 percent lower at 1,616 points.

Oil, the mainstay of the Russian economy, recently plummeted to under $30 a barrel, a 13-year low.

The ruble hit a historic low on Wednesday as the dollar climbed past the 82 ruble mark for the first time, exceeding the levels seen during the shock plunge of the Russian currency in December 2014, AFP reported.

“The current situation is challenging, but the significant depreciation of the ruble made our national production more competitive”, Alexey Mordashov, chief executive of Russian mining company Severstal, told CNN at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday downgraded its forecast for Russian Federation, predicting that the country’s economy would contract by 1 percent this year.

The Russian Central Bank came in for criticism from Sergei Glazyev, an economist and aide to Putin. However, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov appeared to play down Glazyev’s remarks in a Wednesday conference call, saying that Putin does not take sides in economic disputes among senior officials.

The low oil price has also put pressure on other post-Soviet economies, particularly oil producers.

After a day of relative calm, the ruble resumed its downward spiral, breaking through the previous record low it hit on December 16, 2014, as oil prices, key to Russia’s economy, test 12-year lows.

Low oil prices are complicating life for the European Central Bank in its struggle to push up the worrisome low inflation in the 19 nations that use the euro currency.