Russian capital flight tops $10b, inflation on rise

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MOSCOW, Sept 22 (AFP): The global financial crisis has so far cost Russia up to 15 billion dollars in capital flight and may raise inflation up to two per cent higher than foreseen, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said yesterday.
"We have not yet got exact figures, but (capital flight) was some 10-15 billion dollars" due to the crisis, Kudrin said in televised comments, adding that Russia's investment market lost 52 per cent of its capitalisation volume.
Inflation "can be higher by one or two per cent more than what we predicted, but not by a lot," the minister added.
Russia was not alone in suffering from the crisis. "China fell, Brazil fell, and other countries too," Kudrin said, warning that it could take up to a year before the situation gets back to normal.
Officials earlier pledged to inject 44 billion dollars (31 billion euros) into the market to fight collapsing investor confidence and the central bank said it was slashing reserve requirements for banks by four per cent.
The RTS plunged 11.47 per cent and the MICEX 17.45 per cent Tuesday in the worst day of trading since the financial crisis of 1998, which led to exploding inflation, the collapse of several major banks and political turmoil.
The RTS has now lost 57 per cent since hitting an all-time high in May, a slump analysts put down to a mix of falling energy prices, global market turmoil and political issues including worries over the war with Georgia.
Meanwhile the Central Bank Thursday said that Russia's international reserves had lost 13.3 billion dollars, going down from 573.6 billion dollars on September 5 to 560.3 billion dollars on September 12.