The Russian Finance Minister: Sino-Russian trade is almost entirely settled in local currencies, basically free from the West
According to RIA Novosti on April 4th, during the 11th China-Russia Ministerial Meeting on Finance held in Beijing on Tuesday, Russia's Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov stated that Russia and China have largely moved away from using Western currencies for trade settlements, with almost all payments now conducted in rubles and yuan.
It was reported that 99.1% of the settlements in Sino-Russian bilateral trade are made using the currencies of the two countries, a proportion that has further increased from the previous "90% to 95%" announced by the Russian government. He said these figures "speak for themselves."
Siluanov pointed out that this shift not only allowed the two countries to successfully avoid the "foreign unfriendly infrastructure" linked to the US dollar and euro, but also enabled them to bypass the Western banking system of "unfriendly countries."
"Previously, trade payments mainly relied on the US dollar and euro, with funds needing to flow through Western banks, which could interrupt related settlement operations at any time," he added. Therefore, the current core task is to "consolidate this achievement" and further expand bilateral cooperation.
Russian Prime Minister Mishustin is currently visiting China and has been invited to hold a series of high-level meetings with Chinese officials. According to Russian media reports, at the 30th regular meeting between the Chinese and Russian prime ministers held on the 3rd, Mishustin also emphasized that the share of the US dollar and euro in Sino-Russian trade transactions has been reduced to a minimum.
When emphasizing that China is Russia's largest external economic partner, he mentioned, "The share of the US dollar and euro in trade settlements has already reached the level of statistical error."
Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1847919838993498/
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