[The Epoch Times, 7 ottobre 2022](Full report by Epoch Times reporter Wang Xiang) After the invasion of Ukraine, the Westfinancial penaltiesSince then, Russia has been forced to settle more yuan transactions. The yuan surpassed the dollar for the first time this week as the most traded foreign currency on the Moscow Exchange.
Data from the Moscow Exchange Group showed that 65,000 yuan rubles exchanges were completed on Monday (October 3), bringing the volume to 70.3 billion rubles ($ 1.17 billion). By comparison, spot trades for the USD-RUB pair totaled 68.2 billion rubles, with volume close to 30,000.
The trend continued until Tuesday, albeit at slightly lower levels.
The Russian economy is gradually drawing closer to Beijing due to tensions with the West, especially after the Visa and Mastercard global payment systems suspended operations in Russia since March and some Russian banks were expelled from the country. – border remittances.
Russia became the third largest market for offshore yuan transactions in August, accounting for 4.27% of total yuan payments, after Hong Kong and the UK, according to SWIFT. In May, Russia ranked 12th in this regard.
Temur Umarov, an expert from the Moscow Center of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the South China Morning Post: “This is an inevitable process as Russia is forced to ‘de-dollarize the economy’ under the pressure of sanctions. ‘. “
That doesn’t necessarily mean that the yuan has become more popular in Russia, but it reflects the impasse in which Russia finds itself, Ma said.
In September, Gazprom announced that its natural gas supply to China would be settled in equal parts in rubles and renminbi. Analysts say this is an attempt by Beijing and Moscow to isolate themselves from Western pressures and the dollar.
But Tiemu analyzed that as Sino-Russian bilateral trade increases, the increasing use of RMB will deepen Russia’s economic dependence on China.
“If Russia doesn’t want all this money frozen, it will have to go to China to buy more goods and services,” he said.
At the same time, Russia could also accelerate the expansion of a cross-border payment and settlement system developed by Beijing.
Beijing launched the Cross-Border Bank Payment System (CIPS) in October 2015, with the aim of providing an independent international RMB payment and clearing system to facilitate the international use of RMB. But the yuan still lags far behind other major currencies like the dollar and euro when it comes to global payments.
Russian experts are full of doubts and concerns about the yuan
The Jamestown Foundation, a US think tank, said in a Sept. 27 article that many Russian experts and officials have expressed serious doubts and concerns about the renminbi’s rise in the financial sector.
The report, citing Russian media reports, said Putin’s economic adviser Maxim Oreshkin suggested that the reserve currency should be in the ruble rather than other currencies, even those of “friendly countries” such as the renminbi.
“My point is very clear that the dollar and the euro should be exchanged for rubles, not other currencies.” He also doubted that the renminbi could be used as a suitable reserve currency for Russia. “China is a country with a budget deficit of 5% of GDP. 5.1% of GDP.
Sofia Donets, a Russian economics expert, also complained that now, working with China, the regulations are unclear and China can provide far less information than they want to know. In the past, Russian economists and financial experts could easily read the regulations in plain English, while the Federal Reserve continued to provide all the negative and risky information on the dollar.
Russian experts fear that with 17% of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves in yuan, the Kremlin will not be able to withdraw funds in a timely manner when needed, and thus will be trapped by the CCP.
The Jamestown Foundation report states that the banking systems of various countries are accustomed to using reserve currencies such as the dollar and euro in foreign trade and will not open accounts in other currencies unless absolutely necessary. Even if the buyer agrees to trade in an unreserved currency in extraordinary circumstances, the other party’s merchandise must be discounted.
While it is technically feasible to replace an unreserved currency with a reserve currency, it is difficult to gain acceptance of an unreserved currency in actual trade with other countries. For example, Chinese companies don’t use Russian rubles to buy goods from Turkey, and Russian companies don’t pay in Turkish lira when trading with India.
Responsible editor: Li Yuan #
