Russians are increasingly holding their money in Chinese yuan. About this RIA Novosti said Vitaly Mankevich, President of the Russian-Asian Association of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RAUIE).
According to the expert, the yuan is gradually replacing the dollar for citizens.
“Many Chinese financial institutions have been based in Moscow for a long time. Moreover, one of the PRC banks, ChinaConstructionBank, is starting to work even with the Russian population,” said Mankevich.
In the first seven months of this year, spot trading volume in yuan on the Moscow Stock Exchange reached 18.3 trillion rubles, which is 6.5 times more than in the same period last year. Artur Bedzhanov, senior personal broker at BCS World of Investments, explained this trend by the increasing demand for Chinese currency by Russian businesses and investors. Bedzhanov believes that yuan demand in Russia is not expected to fall in the near future. He admitted that this would be possible only with the normalization of Russia’s relations with Western countries and the easing of sanctions on the gold and foreign currency reserves of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation.
However, the dynamics of the Chinese currency may scare some investors, reported Reuters. On September 7, the yuan/dollar exchange rate on the Shanghai Stock Exchange fell to its lowest level since December 12, 2007 (7.3279 yuan). Following this, the price of the Chinese currency on the world market continued to fall and updated its lowest level in 10 months against the US dollar, approaching its lowest level in 16 years.
At the close of the Moscow Stock Exchange on Friday, the yuan exchange rate was 13,267 rubles, falling by 0.15% since the opening.
Previously Chinese banks augmented Loans to Russian banks quadrupled.