business settlements in yuan increased sixfold – Kommersant

Over the past seven months, settlements by small and medium-sized businesses in yuan have grown sixfold year-on-year, said VTB Senior Vice President Ruslan Eremenko. According to him, payments in national currencies of foreign countries have increased sevenfold since the beginning of the year.

“The bank’s clients are also actively using the opportunity to place funds in Chinese currency – the deposit portfolio has tripled since the beginning of the year and amounted to 1.5 billion yuan, of which 250 million are in the Far East,” Mr. Eremenko said on the sidelines of the EEF (quoted from TASS).

He said that in the structure of payments by participants in foreign economic activity, the ruble leads, which in seven months accounted for 80% of the total volume of settlements. The share of the yuan in cross-border payments increased from 4% to 18% year-on-year, and it accounts for 85% in foreign currency payments, a VTB representative said.

According to the bank, turnover in the currencies of the CIS countries also increased 5.7 times. Among them, the Kazakh tenge is in the lead with a share of more than 50%, in second place is the Armenian dram (20%), followed by the Belarusian ruble (15%) and the Azerbaijani manat (13%).

“Among the currencies that entered active circulation in foreign economic activity (foreign economic activity) in the second half of last year, the Indian rupee leads in terms of dynamics. Transactions in this currency in the second quarter of this year increased six times compared to the previous one. Settlements in UAE dirhams and Vietnamese dongs have more than doubled,” added Ruslan Eremenko.

Russian Foreign Ministry last week reportedthat the share of settlements in national currencies between Russia and China exceeds 80%. For eight months, trade turnover between the Russian Federation and China increased by 32%. Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Maxim Oreshkin called China is Russia’s key partner, which has surpassed the European Union in terms of trade volume.

Laura Keffer