Capital flight from Russia increased 4.5 times
Between July 27 and August 2, 2016, investors withdrew $32 million from funds associated with Russia.
A week earlier, the net outflow of investments amounted to $6.9 million, RBC reports, referring to data from the Emerging Portfolio Fund Research, an organization that monitors the inflow and outflow of investment funds and their allocation.
Two-thirds of the mentioned capital outflow occurred in exchange traded funds. Such results were not unexpected because, until recently, oil prices have fallen rapidly, losing 7% in one week. On the other hand, funds focused on emerging markets as a whole showed a positive trend; the inflow increased to $2.24 billion compared with $1.67 billion a week earlier. This happened because of weak expectations for a rate increase from the US central bank.
According to the Bank of Russia’s preliminary assessment of the balance of payments for the first six months of this year, the overall net outflow of the capital from the country amounted to $10.5 billion.
In 2015, the net outflow of capital from the private sector totaled $56.9 billion, compared with $153 billion in 2014.