Russians To Vote On ‘New’ Rouble
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Russians will get to decide on a new symbol for their currency, reported Reuters on Wednesday, in a move by the government to enhance the international profile of the rouble ahead of plans to establish Moscow as a global financial centre.
The Russian central bank, the Bank of Russia, received over 1,000 entries for an official symbol, before narrowing it down to five finalists on their website.
Russians will get to decide on a new symbol for their currency, reported Reuters on Wednesday, in a move by the government to enhance the international profile of the rouble ahead of plans to establish Moscow as a global financial centre.
The Russian central bank, the Bank of Russia, received over 1,000 entries for an official symbol, before narrowing it down to five finalists on their website.
Russians will now have until December 5 to vote for their favourite option, with the new symbol set to be officially recognised by the government and international community.
The idea of creating a rouble symbol to match the $, € and £ first came about in the 1990s, after the European Union’s introduction of the euro, said the Wall Street Journal. But after Russia defaulted in 1998, talk of a symbol lessened while the country focused on straightening out its financial affairs.
The government is now trying to establish Moscow as a global financial centre and wants to encourage the use of the rouble in international trade, as well as a potential reserve currency.
However the central bank only plans to fully float the rouble post-2015, whereby the exchange rate will then be set entirely by the market.
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The Bank of Russia said that more than 100,000 people have already voted on their favourite option. One of the symbols has received 61 percent of the vote, while the least popular has only 2 percent, the bank said, without saying which was leading.
Two of the options are variants on the Russian letter R, which in Cyrillic looks like the letter P in the Latin alphabet. The other three try to simultaneously show the Cyrillic and Latin letters for Ru.
[quote]”The introduction of the graphic symbol of the rouble will help promote a positive image of Russia,” said the central bank in a statement.[/quote]Anton Zakharov, a trader at Promsvyazbank, told WSJ that he preferred the Cyrillic letter P with a horizontal line across. “It is the most readable, recognizable, and matches the standards of the leading currencies’ symbols,” he said.
Evgeny Nadorshin, chief economist at Russia’s largest conglomerate Sistema, however said he would prefer an even simpler version: just the Cyrillic letter P, which is pronounced like the Latin R, as in rouble. “The simpler, the better,” he said.
Other experts though saw little point to the exercise. Dmitry Miroshnichenko, a leading expert of the Higher School of Economics Science and Research Institute, told the Voice of Russia: “Over a thousand years have our country lived without a special symbol for the rouble; it will live just fine a thousand years more.”
[quote]“I remember several attempts to introduce a symbol for the rouble, choose it and approve it. There were quite interesting options. However, no final decisions were made. After choosing the symbol it’s unlikely anything will change for the Russian economy,” he added.[/quote]The Shortlisted Five:
