As Russia continues its efforts for de-dollarization, it has now said that it’s possible to partially replace the U.S. dollar reserves with other currencies and even digital assets in the future.
Alexander Pankin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, in an interview with Interfax, spoke about the invariability of the Russian course towards de-dollarization. He said:
We are compelled to state that “sanctions risks and challenges” from the United States remain. Under these conditions, it is clear that our settlements with major trading partners need protection and stability in the context of the currency used, since payments in US dollars, in fact, go through American banks and the clearing system, which allows Washington to block any, in their opinion , suspicious transactions.
Thus, there is no doubt about the expediency of continuing to work on further reducing the share of the dollar in national international reserves, as well as its use in settlements with foreign partners.
“At the same time, it is possible to replace the American dollar with other currencies, both national and regional, and in the future, probably, with some kind of digital assets.”
But, he stressed that it will need to look at current contracts and bilateral models to implement it.
“Such work requires the application of significant efforts in both bilateral, regional and multilateral formats, including the need to reformat the established models of cooperation between states and commercial structures and create appropriate mechanisms to support the functioning of new settlement systems.”
He said that Russia has already made some progress in this direction, in particular, there are agreements with a number of key trading partners on more active use of national currencies in bilateral settlements, but there is still much work to be done.
“It should also be remembered that the choice of the currency of the contract is still the prerogative of the parties to the transaction. In this regard, appropriate measures are being taken to make it profitable for business to use currencies other than the US dollar in settlements between Russia and foreign partners.”
Last week, the Russian President Vladimir Putin strengthened the validity of digital assets by saying “Crypto has the right to exist and can be used as a means of payment”.
Notes: The statements have been translated. It may not be exact wordings.