On October 11, President Putin signed a decree on the mandatory sale of foreign currency earnings for individual companies: within six months they will be required to repatriate and sell foreign currency earnings on the Russian market. This measure is designed to stabilize the exchange rate of the Russian currency.
The decree establishes a specific list of exporters who will have to return the currency to Russia within six months and sell it on the domestic market. The list consists of 43 groups of companies belonging to the sectors of the fuel and energy, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, chemical and forestry industries, grain farming.
From October 16, they are obliged to transfer at least 80% of the foreign currency received under the terms of their export contracts to their Russian accounts before the expiration of two months from the date of receipt of funds. And then within two weeks they must sell at least 90% of these amounts. Thus, the share of mandatory sales will be 72%.
Given the sanctions threat, neither the decree nor the lists of enterprises will be published.
Authorized representatives of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service are being introduced into certain companies for in-situ monitoring of compliance with the new currency regulation rules.
Additionally, on October 17, it became known that a bill has been submitted to the government of the Russian Federation that will strengthen currency control. Exporters will be obliged to provide the Central Bank with consolidated data on assets and liabilities denominated in foreign currency for the entire group of companies – including their foreign daughter entities.