MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Russian rouble strengthened on Friday, buying and selling in a slender vary between 60 and 61 to the greenback because it has for a lot of the week, supported by exporters shopping for roubles to cowl month-end tax funds.

At 0710 GMT, the rouble was 0.3% stronger in opposition to the greenback at 60.50 and had gained 0.5% to commerce at 62.90 versus the euro. It had firmed 0.3% in opposition to the yuan to eight.43.

The rouble has been portray the same image of late, mentioned Alexei Antonov of Alor Dealer, rising for a lot of the day and giving up good points within the final two hours of buying and selling.

“This buying and selling sample is prone to proceed as we speak,” Antonov mentioned.

The rouble is supported by a month-end tax interval through which exporters normally convert overseas change income into roubles to pay home liabilities.

, a world benchmark for Russia’s principal export, was up 0.3% at $85.6 a barrel.

Russian inventory indexes have been blended.

The dollar-denominated RTS index was up 0.4% to 1,150.9 factors. The rouble-based MOEX Russian index was 0.1% decrease at 2,209.6 factors.

Market members have been pretty inactive through the earlier session, mentioned Sinara Funding Financial institution. The one “vivid spot” was the dynamics of Veon securities.

The Amsterdam-listed telecoms operator’s shares soared after it introduced plans to promote its Russian enterprise, Vimpelcom, to senior members of the Vimpelcom administration staff, for 130 billion roubles ($2.2 billion).