BRICS members Russia and China have abandoned the use of Western currencies, including the US Dollar, in their bilateral trade. According to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, the business ties between the two nations are booming, with bilateral trade turnover already reaching “$200 billion ahead of schedule.”
Last week, the Russian leader spoke about the BRICS de-dollarization mission, in particular Russia’s involvement. Mishustin said nearly all payments were being carried out in Rubles and Yuan. “We continue to increase the share of national currencies in mutual settlements. If in 2020 this figure was about 20 percent, then this year we have completely gotten rid of the currencies of third countries in mutual settlements,” Mishustin was quoted as saying by Russian media.
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Russia and China’s trade ties have only strengthened in the past year, with the two BRICS nations working on multiple deals in their local currencies. In October, the two powerhouses made a $25 billion deal in local currencies to increase trade dealings in the food and energy sectors. BRICS has fully embraced de-dollarization since Western sanctions were placed against Russia.
“We are creating comfortable conditions for the work of commercial firms on the Russian and Chinese markets. We have an extensive joint agenda,” Mishustin added in a speech last week.
Russia Pushing For More Inter-BRICS Trade
Outside of de-dollarization, Russia is also leading the initiative for BRICS to increase relations and trade within the bloc. Both Russia and India have settled $40 billion worth of trade in local currency, and the remaining nations are also already working on building up their trade relationships with one another.
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Furthermore, last week Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov spoke at the Russia-China Financial Dialogue forum in Beijing. There, he further pushed for trade within the bloc as well as a unified BRICS pay system. “We need to further develop financial cooperation within the BRICS countries. Here we see opportunities to develop a payments system that would be independent of the infrastructure, which does not always fully fulfill the goals of individual countries,” Siluanov stated.