Discord Over Ruble Rate

By Combined Reports

April 28, 2011

The budget will lose 408 billion rubles this year as the country's currency strengthens two rubles versus the dollar, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said in Moscow on Wednesday.

The budget will receive an additional 1.46 trillion rubles of revenue overall this year, Kudrin said.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Lisin, Russia's richest man, told reporters in Copenhagen on Wednesday that his business empire was indifferent to the strengthening ruble. "The strengthening of the ruble is a natural consequence of the weaker dollar and the rise in the price of oil," he said.

(Bloomberg, Reuters)

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