(London/Hong Kong Comprehensive News) The Financial Times reported that China's four major banks are providing billions of dollars to Russia to fill the gap left by Western banking institutions to withdraw from Russia.
Since the outbreak of the Russian and Ukraine War in February last year, Western institutions have imposed a series of sanctions on Russia, and banking institutions have also stopped their business in Russia.
Financial Times reported that Chinese banks are filling this shortage of Western financial institutions.
Reporting quotes data from the School of Economics, saying that since the outbreak of the war, the four major banks in China, including Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank, Construction Bank, and Bank of China, have increased four times the opening of Russia.
In early 2022, the total loan of these four major banks in Russia was US $ 2.2 billion (S $ 2.978 billion).According to data from the Russian Bank of Russia, this number increased to nearly $ 10 billion (S $ 13.535 billion) in the 14 months ended March this year.
It is reported that this is one of the measures to promote RMB to become a global currency replacing the US dollar.
Russia Tasz April quoted Russian Treasury Minister Silu Annov's words that more than 70%of the trade settlement between Russia and China had converted to the settlement of local currency.In May, Reuters quoted people familiar with the matter that almost all the currencies used in Russian oil in China in the past year were RMB.
This shows that Russia's economic center of gravity is turning to China.The Financial Times reported that more than 60% of Russia's exports were paid in US dollars and euros before the outbreak of the Russian and Ukraine War, and the proportion of RMB accounted for less than 1%.
