Members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) are ramping up settlements in national currencies, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on Thursday at the SCO summit in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Founded in 2001, the SCO is an economic and security bloc covering most of Eurasia and accounting for more than 20% of global GDP. The organization includes India, Iran, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and now Belarus.
Currently, 14 countries, including Egypt as the only African state, hold SCO dialogue-partner status, allowing them to participate in the organization’s specialized events at the invitation of its members.
Speaking at a Council of Heads of State meeting, Putin noted that the SCO members have increased the use of national currencies in mutual settlements.
“For example, their share in Russia’s commercial transactions with members of the organization has already exceeded 92% in the first four months of this year,” the president said.
The global trend toward using national currencies in trade instead of the US dollar gained significant momentum after Russia was cut off from the Western financial system and had its foreign reserves frozen in 2022.
Putin also reiterated Russia’s proposal to create an independent mechanism for settling payments within the SCO, adding that meetings between finance ministers and central bank governors help boost trade and investment ties within the organization.
Earlier this year, the head of the Russian central bank, Elvira Nabiullina, noted that more countries were having doubts about the West’s SWIFT, after many Russian banks were cut off from the Belgium-based financial messaging system following the start of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.