Reuters
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia's finance ministry said on Monday that it would halve its purchases of foreign currency and gold in the month ahead, a move that will increase the state's overall forex sales. The finance ministry said its purchases of foreign currencies and gold for the period from May 8 to June 6 would amount to the equivalent of 110.94 billion roubles ($1.21 billion), or 5.55 billion roubles per day. Due to other interventions the central bank carries out, the Russian state will continue making FX sales throughout May with overall sales increasing to 6.3 billion roubles from 0.6 billion roubles a day in the previous month.