러시아 국가부도설? Sorry, Putin. Russia’s economy is doomed

환율 폭등 주가 폭락,

심리적 마지노선 돌파

 

환율폭등 주가폭락 등으로 러시아 경제가 파국으로 치닫고 있는 가운데 모라토리움 설까지 나돌고있다.

푸틴 대통령이 시정 연설을 하는 모습 /사진 =뉴시스

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러시아 경제가 파국으로 치닫고 있는 가운데 환율과 주가가 마침내 심리적 마지노선마저 돌파하여 일촉즉발의 위기상황으로 몰리고 있다. 이런 가운데 시장 일각에서는 국가부도와 모라토리움(지불유예)설까지 나돌고 있다.   루블화는 러시아 현지시각으로 15일 모스크바 금융시장에서 달러당 61.25까지 올랐다. 하룻 만에 또 3.07루블 오른 것이다. 유로화에 대한 루블화 환율도 전날 종가보다 3.79루블이 오른 달러당 76.10루블이었다. 달러와 유로에 대한 루불화의 환율은 그동안 심리적 마지노선으로 알려져 왔던 1달러당 60루블과 1유로당 75루블 선을 모두 뚫은 것이다. 루불화 환율은 연초에 비해 달러 대비 87%, 유로 대비 68%가 각각 올랐다. 루블화 환율이 치솟는다는 것은 러시아 돈인 루불화의 교환가치 폭락하고 있다는 사실을 의미하는 것이다. 이와 함께 러시아의 대표적 주가지수인 RES도 연일 계속 폭락하고 있다. 이날 RES 지수는 하룻새 9%이상 폭락해 2009년 상반기 이후 최저치인 720선으로 후퇴했다. 러시아 정부가 루블화 가치하락을 막기 위해 금융시장에서 달러를 팔아가면서까지 루블화를 대량 매입하는 등 강력한 환율 방어 노력을 폈음에도 불구하고 이 같은 당국의 의지를 비웃기라도 하듯 시장에서는 루블화 투매 현상이 가속화되고 주가는 연일 폭락하고 있는 것이다. 최근 한 달여 동안 일주일동안 러시아 금융 당국이 환율을 잡기위해 퍼부은 돈은 59억 달러에 달하고 있다. 러시아 중앙은행은 환율 안정을 위해 지난 11일 기준 금리를 9.5%에서 10.5%로 1% 포인트 올렸지만 이 역시 효과를 내지 못하고 있다. 미국의 월스트리트저널은 “루블화 가치 폭락으로 러시아에 대한 의존도가 높은 유럽 다국적 기업들에까지 피해가 확산하고 있다”며 우려를 표시했다. 루블화 환율 폭등으로 러시아 은행과 기업들이 갚아야 할 대외 부채 부담은 더욱 가중되고 있다. 러시아 은행과 기업의 총 외채 규모는 6200억 달러 선에 달하고 있다. 환율 폭등과 주가 폭락으로 위기가 고조되면서 더 이상의 파국을 막기 위해서는 러시아 당국이 시장거래를 일단 중단하고 모라토리움할 지도 모른다는 설까지 유포되고 있다. 글로벌이코노믹 김재희 기자

 

 

 

(Alexey Druzhinin/Ria Novosti/Kremin pool)

 

A funny thing happened on the way to Vladimir Putin running strategic laps around the West. Russia's economy imploded. The latest news is that Russia's central bank raised interest rates from 10.5 to 17 percent at an emergency 1 a.m. meeting in an attempt to stop the ruble, which is down 50 percent on the year against the dollar, from falling any further. It's a desperate move to save Russia's currency that comes at the cost of sacrificing Russia's economy. So even if it "works," things are about to get a lot worse. It's a classic kind of emerging markets crisis. It's only a small simplification, you see, to say that Russia doesn't so much have an economy as it has an oil exporting business that subsidizes everything else. That's why the combination of more supply from the United States, and less demand from Europe, China, and Japan has hit them particularly hard. Cheaper oil means Russian companies have fewer dollars to turn into rubles, which is just another way of saying that there's less demand for rubles—so its price is falling. It hasn't helped, of course, that sanctions over Russia's incursion into Ukraine have already left Russia short on dollars. Add it all up, and the ruble has fallen something like 22 percent against the dollar the past month, with 11 percent of that coming on Monday alone. As you can see below, the Russian ruble has fallen even further than the Ukrainian hryvnia or Brent oil has this year. The only asset, and I use that word lightly, that's done worse than the ruble's 50 percent fall is Bitcoin, which is a fake currency that techno-utopians insist is the future we don't know we want.     Source: Bloomberg And this is only going to get worse. Russia, you see, is stuck in an economic catch-22. Its economy needs lower interest rates to push up growth, but its companies need higher interest rates to push up the ruble and make all the dollars they borrowed not worth so much. So, to use a technical term, they're screwed no matter what they do. If they had kept interest rates low, then the ruble would have continued to disintegrate, inflation would have spiked, and big corporations would have defaulted—but at least growth wouldn't have fallen quite so much. Instead, Russia has opted for the financial shock-and-awe of raising rates from 10.5 to 17 percent in one fell swoop. Rates that high will send Russia's moribund economy into a deep recession—its central bank already estimates its economy will contract 4.5 to 4.7 percent if oil stays at $60-a-barrel—but they might, just might, be enough to stop the ruble's free fall. We'll see. If they're not, Russia will have to resort to capital controls to prop up the value of the ruble, and might even have to ask the IMF for a bailout. Putin's Russia, like the USSR before it, is only as strong as the price of oil. In the 1970s, we made the mistake of thinking that the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan meant we were losing the Cold War, when the reality was that they had stumbled into their own Vietnam and could only afford to feed their people as long as oil stayed sky-high. The USSR's economic mirage, though, became apparent to everybody—none less than their own people, who had to scrounge in empty supermarkets—after oil prices bottomed out in the 1980s. That history is repeating itself now, just without the Marxism-Leninism. Putin could afford to invade Georgia and Ukraine when oil prices were comfortably in the triple digits, but not when they're half that. Russia can't afford anything then. Putin might be playing chess while we play checkers, but only if we lend him the money for the set. As the ruble plunges to new historic lows, ordinary Russians seem unfazed by the free falling currency saying everything will be good in the end. (Reuters) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/15/russias-economy-is-doomed-its-that-simple/ washingtonpost

 

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