In his opinion, Russia might lose its creditworthiness due to excessive strengthening of the ruble. At the same time, Mr. Dvorkovich noted this was not going to happen any time soon. According to him, the strengthening of the ruble against the basket of currencies was moderate, about 4-5 percent a year. Nevertheless, this already created problems for some manufacturing industries, the Deputy Economy Minister remarked.

Mr. Dvorkovich said the Russian economy was not able to withstand sharp fluctuations in the ruble’s exchange rate. As an example, he referred to the 1998 default. “We cannot survive such financial shocks several times,” he stressed.

For his part, Financial Minister Alexey Kudrin believes that Russia should benefit from the situation on the foreign exchange market. In particular, he suggested importing advanced equipment and technologies from the United States. He said the ruble had strengthened against the American currency by 19 percent in 2003, and by 4 percent – against a basket of currencies. At the same time, the ruble weakened against the euro by 1 percent. Meanwhile, economic growth was significantly higher in Russia than in the United States and the countries of the euro zone.