Russian Finance Minister Discloses That Over 90% of Bilateral Trade With China Is Settled Outside the U.S. Dollar System

Anton Siluanov, the Russian Finance Minister, pointed out that a majority of the bilateral trade with China is being conducted outside the U.S. dollar system. He stressed that over 90% of these transactions have been completed using national currencies (rubles and yuan) due to the risks associated with executing these using “unfriendly” currencies.

Russian Finance Minister Disclosed Over 90% of the Trade With China Gets Settled With National Currencies

Russia has achieved a milestone in its trade relations with China, moving almost all its payments outside the U.S. dollar-led financial system. Russian Finance Minister Anton Soluanov stressed that the country was now conducting 90% of its bilateral trade transactions with China using national currencies (yuan and rubles).

At the tenth Russian-Chinese financial dialogue held in Moscow on Monday, and with the presence of its Chinese counterpart Lan Foan, Siluanov stated it was “important” that this switch to payments in friendly currencies was executed. He had declared before that this change was relevant due to the risks of completing these transactions using currencies issued by so-called “unfriendly countries.”

He also disclosed that the bilateral trade turnover might surpass last year’s numbers. According to Chinese customs data, trade numbers rose by 1.6% during the first seven months of 2024, amounting to $136.67 billion.

Siluanov has been on top of the payments issue since last year when he talked about the relevance of finding alternative payment systems to conduct these settlements. However, even payments in the Chinese yuan are now facing difficulties due to the risks of secondary sanctions that banks face when intermediating them.

This situation has Russian companies seeking alternatives including proposing barter trades with some of their Chinese counterparts or even using stablecoins to settle these payments. The adoption of crypto as part of this use case is poised to grow given the recent approval of a law regulating the use of digital assets for international payments.

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