Some $750 billion has been moved from Russia in the last quarter-century, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
Russia’s net capital outflow, typically used as a measure of economic or political stability, has increased in the past two years, reaching $67.5 billion in 2018. Some economists forecast the trend will slow down to $30 billion in 2019.
“To rein in capital flight over the long term, the government needs to crack down further on corruption and put an end to what even President Vladimir Putin describes as predatory law enforcement,” Bloomberg suggested.
It says the slowdown in capital flight could reflect either “tighter controls and mounting geopolitical risk” or reduced transparency that makes the flows harder to track.
Meanwhile, the $18.6 billion in capital outflow in the first two months of 2019 reflected an accumulation of corporate international assets and does not point to “higher nervousness regarding sanctions,” the Dutch financial services company ING said Tuesday.
Bloomberg published the chart a week after figures from Forbes’ 2019 billionaires list suggested that 98 Russian billionaires hold more wealth than the entire Russian population’s bank savings.