MOSCOW, Feb 15 (Reuters) – Russia will need to liberalise its exchange rate regime if it wants the rouble to become a reserve currency, fulfilling an ambition stated by the country’s most likely next president, analysts said on Friday. Russia runs a managed float of the rouble, keeping it stable against a dollar/euro basket but Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Russia will allow the rouble to float freely in three years as part of a transition to inflation targeting regime. Russia ran a trade surplus of about $23 billion in 2007 with its ex-Soviet neighbours and is an important trade partner for countries like Kazakhstan or Ukraine, which run gold and forex reserves of $19 billion and $32 billion respectively. Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Masimov told RIA news agency in an interview last month that Kazakhstan did not plan to include the rouble in its reserves, adding that Russia should first fulfil its ambition to become the world’s fifth largest economy. read more
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