/ world today news/ In the conditions of the ongoing sanctions from the West, Russia and China are increasing the volume of their bilateral trade and may reach a record level of turnover this year. In addition, restrictive measures by the US, along with threats to exclude them from the SWIFT global payment system, are increasingly encouraging both countries to abandon the dollar and switch to yuan for mutual payments, the Global Times reported.
The use of the yuan in trade between China and Russia is becoming more active against the background of ongoing financial sanctions from the United States, Global Times writes. Russia, for its part, is also actively trying to get rid of the use of dollar settlements. As a result, the share of the Chinese yuan in the total volume of Russian-Chinese bilateral trade has increased from 3.1 percent in 2014 to 17.5 percent in 2020, Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui said.
According to the Chinese diplomat, the yuan currently represents 30.4% of the assets of the Russian National Wealth Fund and 12.8% of Russian reserve assets. “These changes demonstrate the inherent advantage of the yuan and its potential for use in the Russian market, showing that China and Russia have made positive progress in diversifying bilateral trade agreements“, emphasized the ambassador.
He also noted that the expansion of payments in local currencies is one of the key aspects of the development of cooperation between China and Russia in the financial sector, which also contributes to the creation of “more flexible and stable international monetary system”reports the Global Times.
In recent years, Russia, China and other countries have taken various measures to reduce the share of settlement in dollars and expand the use of their own national currency in trade operations. This is due to the fact that they had to face a series of harsh sanctions from Washington, including threats of exclusion from the SWIFT global payment system, the author recalls.
The Chinese ambassador also noted that the volume of bilateral trade, which Russia and China have agreed to actively promote, is capable of reaching a record level this year. According to statistics, in the first half of 2021, trade between the two countries reached $63.08 billion, up 28.2% compared to the same period last year, the article said. In addition, during the past period from 2018 to 2020, the volume of bilateral trade exceeded 100 billion dollars annually, the Global Times found.
Translation: ES
#Global #Times #Western #sanctions #trade #Russia #increasingly #shifting #yuan
