The European Central Bank says capital flight from Russia since the Ukraine crisis erupted may be four times higher than admitted by the Kremlin, a clear sign that sanctions pressure is inflicting serious damage on the Russian economy.
Mario Draghi, the ECB’s president, said the outflows from Russia have been large enough over recent weeks to push up the euro exchange rate, complicating monetary policy for the ECB.
“We had very significant outflows that have been estimated by some to be in the order of €160bn out of Russia,” he said, without specifying where the information came from.
This is equivalent to $222bn. It is the highest figure suggested so far by a senior official with access to confidential data. The Russian finance ministry said outflows had been just $51bn in the first quarter, though the total has almost certainly risen since then.
“Draghi’s figure is a huge amount. If this is correct, it shows that Russia is in much more trouble than people think,” said Tim Ash, from Standard Bank. “This is the same scale of outflows we saw in late 2008 after the Lehman crisis.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/10817511/ECB-capital-flight-from-Russia-has-hit-220bn.html
