In February 2023, the Chinese yuan overtook the US dollar with a “tomorrow” deal in Russian trade and became the most traded currency in Russia. In this respect writer The newspaper “Kommersant”, with reference to the data of the Moscow Stock Exchange. The trading volume of the yuan in February exceeded 1.48 trillion rubles, which is one-third more than in January of this year. The previous high was set in December 2022. Then the volume of trade in Chinese currency amounted to 0.19 trillion rubles.
The publication notes that in February, the yuan accounted for about 40% of the total trading volume in major currencies, the dollar – a little over 38%, the euro – 21.2%. In the same period last year, the dollar accounted for 87.6% of the Russian trade volume, the yuan 0.32%, the euro – 11.9%.
The newspaper writes that these indicators are increasingly talking about Russia’s withdrawal from transactions in “non-hostile” currencies due to Western sanctions. In particular, according to the data of the General Administration of Customs of China, the trade turnover between Moscow and the Celestial Empire increased by 29.3 percent and reached 190 billion dollars.
Sovcombank chief analyst Mikhail Vasiliev emphasized that about 50 percent of Russia’s trade with China is in rubles and yuan.
“The share of the use of national currencies in trade with China will increase in the coming months,” the expert said.
In addition, the Central Bank’s resumption of selling Chinese currency in line with the interests of the Ministry of Finance, as part of the budget rule since the beginning of this year, contributes to the growth of foreign exchange trade volumes with the yuan,” the regulator said in January. It increased sales to 160.2 billion rubles in February, if it sold only 54.5 billion rubles worth of yuan.
Former Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev judicial Investing in the Chinese yuan is an important alternative to the dollar or euro.