BEIJING: China’s trade minister proposed more use of China’s currency in settling trade with Russia in the face of a falling rouble to ensure safe and reliable trade, Hong Kong broadcaster Phoenix TV reported on Saturday.
The rouble has fallen about 45 per cent against the dollar this year, and suffered particularly steep falls early last week. President Vladimir Putin has declined to call it a crisis and said it would eventually rise again.
Chinese Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng said the use of China’s yuan, or renminbi, has been increasing for several years but Western sanctions on Russia had made the trend more prominent, Phoenix TV said on its website news.ifeng.com.
Gao said China and Russia were capable of achieving this year’s trade target of US$100 billion (RM348 billion). Last year, trade between the two gained 1.1 per cent at US$89.2 billion, according to customs figures.
“Capital investors may be more interested in a volatile stock or foreign exchange market. But in terms of concrete cooperations (between the two nations), we shall have a balanced mentality and push forward those cooperations,” he said.
For China, curtailing the influence of the dollar fits well with its ambitions to increase the influence of the yuan and eventually turn it into a global reserve currency. Reuters