"We are thinking about gradually moving away from international ratings and developing our own ratings industry with Russian agencies," she said.

MOSCOW, April 7. /TASS/. The Central Bank is going to gradually move away from international ratings to Russian ones, Chairperson Elvira Nabiullina at the Russian Bank Association conference.

Currently the regulator is gradually introducing requirements for banks to have ratings of Russian rating agencies.

As was previously reported, in February the draft law on Russian rating agencies' activities was introduced to the State Duma. Currently there is no law regulating rating agencies' activity in Russia. And there are several rating agencies, accredited the Finance Ministry: RusRating, Expert RA Rating Agency, and the National Rating Agency.

Earlier, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergey Storchak said that Russia could consider giving up contracts with international agencies on keeping the ratings of the Russian Federation. "We could give up contracts for maintaining our credit rating. We even pay for these contracts," he said.

Russia's sovereign rating was downgraded below the investment grade by S&P and Moody's.