Russia today extended emergency state support available to financial markets to $130 billion to help prop up sinking stocks and improve liquidity after the worst stockmarket losses in a decade.
Share trading on Russia's two main exchanges was shut for a second day and foreign exchange reserves were down $13 billion on a week ago - a sign the government was actively using its cash pile to prevent the rouble slumping amid a capital flight.
Analysts estimated investors have taken about $36 billion out of Russia since early August, when a brief war with Georgia, combined with a fall in oil prices and global financial turmoil, turned Russian shares from must-have assets into toxic paper.
Worries persisted about Russia's banking sector after inter-bank lending almost ground to a halt and a mid-sized private brokerage was rescued by a state-owned fund.
President Dmitry Medvedev said the country's financial market will receive a total of 500 billion roubles ($19.6 billion) of additional support, including half from the budget.
New measures bring the total amount of promised state support to financial markets to over $130 billion, including 1.5 trillion roubles of budget funds going to banking deposits, 1 trillion available via repo operations and some 300 billion that banks freed up after a cut in reserve requirements.
Trading in stocks will resume tomorrow.
