Russia’s share of JPMorgan’s GBI-EM index, the main global benchmark for emerging market local currency bonds, has grown to 8.3 percent, up from around seven percent two years ago and just 1.5 percent in 2007, new data shows.
Analysts say that the country’s well over half a trillion dollars’ worth of reserves, a competent central bank and conservative fiscal policy make Russia one of the strongest markets, bulletproof to all but the worst-case sanctions. They told Reuters that the new sanctions threats won’t dent the appeal of decent two percent ‘real’ interest rates (rates minus inflation) and one of strongest public balance sheets in the world.
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