Transfers of funds by individuals from the Russian Federation reached a record – DW – 01/28/2023
In 2022, the volume of money transfers from Russia to Kazakhstan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan reached a record. This was reported on Saturday, January 28, by the RBC agency.
The highest growth – 579 percent – was recorded in the votes in Kazakhstan. As follows from the data of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, 357 billion tenge (713 million euros) were directed to the target. This is 6.8 times more than in 2021, the international agency. We are talking only about transactions through the money transfer system, but not about sending from one bank account to another.
In second place in terms of growth is Georgia (plus 403 percent). As scheduled by the National Bank of this country, about $2 billion (1.84 billion euros) was received from the Russian Federation in 2022 – five times more than a year ago. In general, the figures for the past year are record-breaking since at least 2012.
The volume of funds withdrawn from Russia to Armenia increased by approximately 306 percent. Data for the year in the country has not yet been published. According to the results of 11 months, 3.1 billion dollars (2.8 billion euros) were received – the maximum since 2004.
The fourth line belongs to Uzbekistan (plus 160 percent). 14.5 billion dollars (12.8 billion euros) were sent there, the growth for the year was 2.6 times.
Five closures of the Kyrgyz countries (plus 6 percent). From January to November 2022, an individual from the Russian Federation sent 2.6 billion dollars (2.4 billion euros) to this country. This is a record since 2005.
Expert: The reason is the outflow of population from Russia to neighboring countries
As Ekaterina Semerikova, a leading researcher at the Detection and Fintech Laboratory of the Skolkovo School of Management, explained, the growth is associated with the outflow of the population from Russia to neighboring countries. In addition, accessible Russian Federation acquire goods abroad that are not available in Russia from abroad. In this case, we can talk about the transfer of funds to the cards of intermediaries as payment.
From January 27, the Council of the European Union extended until July 31, 2023 the meetings in the Russian annex. “These sanctions, imposed in 2014 in response to Russian actions destabilizing the situation in Ukraine, have been significantly expanded since February 2022 in light of Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified extreme aggression against Ukraine,” the Council of the EU said in a press release.
The sanctions include restrictions on trade, finance, technology and dual-use goods, industry, items and luxuries. They also ban the import of marine crude oil and certain petroleum products from Russia to the EU, the operation of the SWIFT system for banking operations and the activities of Russian propaganda resources in Europe.
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