The Central Bank will speak Chinese – Newspaper Kommersant No. 49 (7494) of 03/23/2023

At the beginning of the week, the Bank of Russia placed a request for proposals on the Sberbank AST site for the provision of educational services for learning the Chinese language “in the field of professional communications”. Whether the placement of the application coincided with the start of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia by chance, or whether the regulator’s employees guessed the time on purpose, history is silent. More importantly, the “pivot to the East” is being expressed more and more clearly.

And it cannot be said that the Russian financial authorities avoided their eastern neighbor. Visits were regularly made, memorandums and agreements were signed, including banking supervision, the development of settlements and payment systems, etc. Five years ago, a significant part of the Central Bank’s gold and foreign exchange reserves was also transferred to Chinese yuan, which by the beginning of 2022 reached 17%. Yes, and the Chinese language, they assure the regulator, employees have been taught for years.

But apparently, communication did not always take place in the same language. Now the situation will gradually improve. As stated in the project documentation, about four groups of students of four to eight people will be trained annually. Of course, against the background of the total number of employees of the Central Bank (at the beginning of 2022 – more than 45 thousand people), this seems ridiculous. But cooperation (as, apparently, language teaching) promises to be many years.

Central Bank employees will have to complete 288 academic hours of the program, more than 70% of which will be in practical training. Foreign experience will be studied for its “use in business processes and professional communication in the field of international cooperation.”

Of course, practical interest in China is expanding against the backdrop of an increase in trade between the two countries, which reached $190 billion last year. The volume of Chinese currency trading on the Moscow Exchange is growing, the largest issuers, including Rusal, Rosneft, bonds in yuan. Reorienting to a new market and financial institutions. The recruitment of employees with knowledge of the Chinese language was reported in Ingosstrakh Investments. Alfa-Bank sees great prospects in developing relations with Chinese organizations, including financial institutions.

According to HeadHunter estimates, the demand for Chinese-speaking employees in the financial sector grew by 113% in a year. A February Superjob study noted that the number of jobs that require knowledge of Chinese has doubled in a year. With other friendly countries in mind, requests for training in Arabic and Turkish and even Farsi can be expected. Although, given the volume of trading, this may not be necessary so quickly.