The strategy of sidelining the U.S. dollar and conducting international trade in national currencies is going smoothly for the BRICS block. The organization, integrated by Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has organized trading arrangements among its members to avoid using the dollar and focus on national currencies.
However, no statements on the level of this cooperation have been revealed until now. On the sidelines of the “Cloud Cities: Forum on the Future of BRICS Cities” event held in Moscow, BRICS’s Deputy Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Samip Shastri offered details on the level of progress of these processes.
Talking to local Russian media, Shastri stated:
I believe that the volume of use of national currencies has already exceeded the volume of use of dollars. Countries are very happy to trade using their currencies.
Furthermore, Shastri assessed that using national currencies presented other benefits. “Using the dollar leads to additional expenses, which are eliminated when I pay directly in rubles or rupees,” he stressed. Shastri also revealed that the organization has already started considering the feasibility of accepting digital currencies for these payments.
The block highlighted the importance of a shift to a national currency-based trade in 2023, including a pledge to increase their use in the final declaration of their 15th annual summit. In May, South Africa’s BRICS Sherpa Anil Sooklal explained that using national currencies would help the group create a “stable global financial architecture, a global financial arena.”
