In an interview with Egypt’s Al-Ahram daily newspaper, Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia and Egypt may exclude the US dollar in favor of their national currencies in the settlement of accounts in bilateral trade. As of now, the issue is, “being actively discussed.”
“This measure will open up new prospects for trade and investment cooperation between our countries, reduce its dependence on the current trends in the world markets,” Putin stated. “I should note that we already use national currencies for trade with a number of the CIS States, and China. This practice proves its worth; we are ready to adopt it in our relations with Egypt as well. This issue is being discussed in substance by relevant agencies of both countries.”
In other news: Iran moves away from US dollar in foreign trade
In 2014, the volume of bilateral trade between Moscow and Cairo was more than $4.5 billion, an increase of nearly 50 percent compared to the previous year. While Russia provides about 40 percent of the grain consumed in Egypt, Cairo in turn exports large amounts of fruits and vegetables to Moscow.
“We see promising prospects in the field of high technology, particularly in the areas of nuclear energy, outer space use and sharing of the Russian GLONASS satellite navigation system,” Putin said.
According to a report from RIA Novosti, “Russia has also been pushing for a switch to national currencies in mutual payments with other countries, including China, India, Thailand and Turkey.”
Russia and China have already made a vow to settle more bilateral trades using rubles and yuans, and to improve cooperation between their banks. The two countries signed a three-year currency-swap line of 150 billion yuan ($24 billion) in October of last year. This allows Russia to borrow yuan and lend ruble, as reported by Bloomberg
SOURCES:
Bora, Kukil. International Business Times. Feb 9, 2015. (http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/russia-egypt-may-drop-us-dollar-in-bilateral-trade-putin/ar-AA99lKu?ocid=vt_twmsnmon)
- RT. Feb 8, 2015. (http://rt.com/business/230447-russia-egypt-trade-dollar-drop/)
Wonderful, cooperation is often good.