How will the sale of foreign currency proceeds be controlled?
04.12.2023
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The authorities intend to control the sale of foreign currency earnings in five areas, writes «Vedomosti» with reference to sources. In particular, exporters will be required to provide monthly information on assets and liabilities
The authorities have decided on a mechanism for controlling the sale of foreign currency earnings, Vedomosti reports. with reference to sources among exporters who received appropriate instructions from Rosfinmonitoring and the Central Bank.
According to one of the newspaper's interlocutors, the sale of proceeds is planned to be controlled in five areas. In particular, exporters will be required to:
Draw up and approve with the authorities a schedule for currency sales. The schedule must be updated weekly;
Disclose the asset and liability management plan (essentially, information about loans, changes in foreign account balances, etc.). This must be done monthly;
Report obligations not fulfilled by buyers under existing contracts;
Decide which members of the group of companies will sell currency;
Report on the implementation of the plan, in fact on the volume of foreign currency sales.
Each of the directions represents a separate reporting form. Documents will need to be sent to the Central Bank or Rosfinmonitoring according to certain standards, which are approved by the Ministry of Finance, the source clarified. It is important that each form implies reporting for the group of companies as a whole, including subsidiaries. According to him, this is the most difficult question so far: it is not clear what should be considered a subsidiary, since there are at least two possible approaches — Civil Code and law enforcement practice of tax authorities.
Another source from Vedomosti also suggests that there is no clarity on this issue at the moment. He explained that so far the Ministry of Finance does not formally have the authority to explain the presidential decree, but as soon as the department receives them, certainty should appear. Another challenge, he said, is presenting revenue sales forecasts. It is often difficult to estimate according to what schedule and in what volume it will be technically possible to sell currency, the newspaper’s interlocutor noted.
A decree on the mandatory sale of foreign currency earnings for large exporters was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in mid-October. As the government staff clarified, exporters will have to credit at least 80% of the proceeds to accounts in Russia within 60 days of receiving foreign currency earnings, then sell at least 90% of the credited proceeds within two weeks. In this case, at least 50% of the funds received in accordance with each export contract must be sold no later than 30 days from the date of receipt.
The corresponding decree is closed, and the list of companies covered by it will not be published, said press secretary of the head of state Dmitry Peskov. The Cabinet of Ministers only noted that we are talking about 43 groups of companies that relate to ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, grain production, forestry and chemical industries, and sectors of the fuel and energy complex.
November 20 «Vedomosti» reported the government's conceptual support for the idea of introducing fines for violating the rules of mandatory sale of export proceeds. The corresponding bill was submitted to the State Duma on November 2. Among the authors — Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building Andrei Klishas, deputies Daniil Bessarabov, Dmitry Vyatkin (both from United Russia) and Sergei Gavrilov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation).
First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov previously explained that with these measures the authorities intend to “increase the transparency and predictability of the foreign exchange market and reduce the opportunity for currency speculation.” Analysts interviewed earlier by RBC predicted that government measures could push the exchange rate into the range of 90 –100 rubles. for a dollar. Currently, the Russian currency is trading even below this mark — around 89.7 rubles. per dollar.
More details at RBC
