Moscow & Cairo to drop USD, use national currencies in bilateral trade – Putin
Russia and Egypt might soon exclude the US dollar and use their national currencies in the settlement of accounts in bilateral trade, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview to Egyptian media ahead of his Monday visit to the country.
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The issue of abandoning the dollar in trade is “being
actively discussed,” Putin told Al-Ahram daily newspaper ahead of his
two-day trip to Egypt. The Russian president was invited for a
bilateral meeting by his Egyptian counterpart Abdul Fattah
al-Sisi.
“This measure will open up new prospects for trade and
investment cooperation between our countries, reduce its
dependence on the current trends in the world markets,”
Putin said.
“I should note that we already use national currencies for
trade with a number of the CIS [Commonwealth of Independent
States] states, and China. This practice proves its worth; we are
ready to adopt it in our relations with Egypt as well. This issue
is being discussed in substance by relevant agencies of both
countries.”
Egypt is a long-time and trusted partner of Russia and the
relationship between the two countries has been rapidly
developing, the Russian president said.
“The volume of bilateral trade has increased significantly
over the past years: In 2014, it increased by almost half
compared to the previous year and amounted to more than $4.5
billion,” he said urging for this trend to be strengthened.
He also praised the development of “mutually beneficial and
effective” cooperation in the sector of agriculture.
“Egypt is the major buyer of Russian wheat, Russia provides
about 40 percent of grain consumed in the country; as for us, we
import fruits and vegetables.”
Moscow imposed a full ban of EU, US, Australian, Canadian, and
Norwegian food exports to Russia on August 7 for one year. Amid
Russian sanctions, Egypt said in August that it was ready to
boost agricultural deliveries to Russia by 30 percent.
During 2013, Egypt’s deliveries of agricultural products to
Russia amounted $440 million, while during the first half of
2014, Cairo supplied $460 million, said the head of the Ministry
of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, Nikolay Fedorov in
August 2014.
Moscow and Cairo are also engaged in energy, automobile
manufacturing and transport cooperation, developing the
intergovernmental trade, economic and scientific-technical
cooperation commission as well.
During Sisi’s last visit to Russia in August 2014, the two
leaders agreed to look at a possibility of creating a free trade
zone between Egypt and the countries of the Customs Union.
Meeting in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi, the presidents
also agreed upon the creation of a Russian industrial zone in
Egypt, which will be part of a new Suez Canal project.
Egypt launched a Suez Canal development project worth $4 billion
in August 2014. The project envisages the digging of a new canal
parallel to the original built 145 years ago with the aim of
speeding up traffic along the existing waterway and boosting the
country’s economy.
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