Moscow will continue expanding trade relations with ‘friendly’ countries and boost the use of national currencies, cutting the US dollar’s share, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated on Friday. According to the top diplomat, Moscow has no intention of undermining the US currency’s global role, but Washington is doing that itself.
“We obviously are not developing our line against the US, against the West. It’s not that we want to ruin the dollar. The US no longer ensures the dollar’s global role that could satisfy everyone. That’s the problem,” Lavrov told students at the Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO).
He noted that in light of Western sanctions, Russia has begun to move away from settlements in dollars and increasingly uses national currencies. At the moment, none of the so-called reserve currencies – the euro, the yen, and the dollar itself – are reliable, Lavrov stressed.
He also told the audience that the trade turnover of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), which also comprises Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, has been growing, with the share of national and other ‘friendly’ currencies there amounting to 76% in 2022. That share is expected to grow further, reaching 90% this year.
Summing up, the minister said that Russia would develop cooperation with those countries that “are ready for it, on the basis of equal rights and the search for a fair balance of interests.” He specified that organizations such as the CSTO, CIS, EEU, BRICS and SCO in particular, work “on the basis of consensus.”
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