MOSCOW: The Russian rouble was up slightly against the U.S. dollar in early Moscow trading on Wednesday, amid rising oil prices and continued support from the country’s finance ministry.

At 0800 GMT the rouble was 0.23% stronger against the dollar at 68.98. Against the euro, the rouble was up 0.48% at 74.64.

The rouble was trading up 0.25% against the Chinese yuan at 10.16 in Moscow.

A note from Andrei Kochetkov, lead analyst at Otkrytie Research, said the rouble would likely resume strengthening by the end of the week amid continued support for the Russian currency from the country’s finance ministry.

Rouble preserves gains after finance ministry intervention

The finance ministry resumed foreign currency interventions for the first time in almost a year last Friday with plans to sell 54.5 billion roubles ($793 million) of yuan from its international reserves over the next few weeks, helping the rouble to arrest a recent slide against the dollar.

Brent crude oil, a benchmark for Russia’s main export, was up 1.07% at $86.84 a barrel.

Russian stock indexes were up marginally at the start of trading.

The dollar-denominated RTS index rose by 0.29% to 1,005.79 points while the rouble-based MOEX Russian index was 0.07% up at 2,198.27 points.