‘The dollar rate determined by the Bank of Russia on December 20, 2006 has undergone almost no changes compared to the day before and came to 26.38 RUR per one dollar. The euro rate has remained almost the same, too, and amounted to 34.57 RUR per one euro,’ says Sergey Vetyshev of SKB-Bank.

‘Dollar has grown by .2 RUR over the last ten days due to the euro becoming weaker on the global markets. The dollar was actually supported by the macroeconomic statistics: the USA consumer price index remained the same in November as in October. The industrial production volumes, however, went up .2%,’ Mr Vetyshev said.

‘This week is highly likely to become the decisive one for the foreign currency market in terms of the end-of-the-year rates, since the investors are going to take the holiday break and probably see this week as the last normal working week before the end of the financial year,’ he observed.

‘We expect the EUR/USD fluctuations ranging from 1.3130 to 1.3200 next week. The dollar rate in Russia might come to 26.35-26.28 RUR, euro might come to 34.65-34.73 RUR.’

The information was reported by the spokesperson for SKB-Bank.