The Russian sovereign debt will be issued denominated in Chinese currency and sold on the Moscow Stock Exchange starting next year, Russia’s Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev has announced, according to Finanz.ru.
“There are plans to list yuan-denominated bonds in Moscow in 2020,” the official said as cited by Russian media.
The measure would mark another step towards de-dollarization, as Moscow and Beijing cannot fully cut reliance from the greenback at this point.
China is Russia’s largest trade partner, and the trade turnover between the two exceeded $100 billion last year, while they expect to double this record in 5 years. Since January to September 2019, year-on-year volume of trade jumped 3.7 percent and has topped $80 billion.
The idea for yuan-denominated OFZ bonds has been considered since 2016, but the launch was subsequently postponed several times. However, this year the move returned to the spotlight, as both Russia and China, facing U.S. financial pressure, are trying to counter the dominance of the U.S. dollar.
