Russia Lays Plans to Cut Dollar Use Amid Sanctions Fears

(Bloomberg) -- Russia’s government is working on measures to stimulate use of alternatives to the dollar, as the Kremlin steps up efforts to cut dependence on the U.S. currency amid fears of new American sanctions.

The government is working on “reducing our economy’s dependence on the American currency, including through stimulating and the creation of mechanisms to shift foreign-trade settlements to national currencies,” according to a statement from the cabinet’s press service published on official news agencies Wednesday. The authorities have “no plans to give up dollar settlements, ban the circulation of the dollar or impose any other restrictions,” it said.

Russia has long struggled to limit its reliance on the dollar because of the relative stability of the U.S. currency its use to price Russia’s main commodity exports. The greenback remains a popular asset for Russian savers, still wary of the ruble after several deep devaluations over the last two decades.

But as the U.S. Congress has pushed in recent months for further steps to punish Russia for alleged election meddling, fears have grown that major banks could be cut off from the U.S. financial system and the government has stepped up its efforts to develop alternatives.

Kostin Plan

Economy Minister Maxim Oreshkin told reporters the government is working on additional steps to make using national currencies more attractive and less costly. “First of all, these are stimulative measures to make these operations simple and convenient for companies and the population,” he said, noting that they require working with other countries to integrate financial infrastructure.

Last month, Andrey Kostin, head of state-owned VTB Bank, announced his own plan for “de-dollarization.” It would take about five years and include increased usage of local currencies in international trade, re-registering major companies in Russia and using local financial infrastructure for Eurobond issues, he said.

The government said its efforts aren’t driven by any “personal initiatives” but “reflect the strategic line of the government.”

President Vladimir Putin supports the move to reduce reliance on the dollar, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday. “This is a very complex process,” he said. “It can’t be quick and will take time.”

Russia has for years called for shifting more of its transactions with China and the European Union, its main trading partners, into yuan and euros, while operations with its former Soviet neighbors could be done in rubles. But progress has been slow.

‘Extra Costs’

“The ruble doesn’t have the same liquidity on the global market that other reserve currencies do and not everyone will want to shift to rubles because that means extra costs,” former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin told reporters. “Countries with soft currencies such as the yuan may want to shift to payment in national currencies but I doubt the European Union will want to take payment from us in rubles.”

Dramatic progress on reducing reliance on the dollar will take at least 1.5-2 years, Deputy Finance Minister Alexey Moiseev said last month, though the government is trying to accelerate that, according to Tass.

“For some Russian companies it is natural -- for example, metals companies who sell to Europe. But for most it is very tricky - oil is generally traded in dollars,” said Liza Ermolenko, an economist at Barclays Capital in London. “This is definitely not a trend internationally, as most struggle to see it as something viable.”

After the latest wave of new sanctions in the spring, Russia cut holdings of U.S. government debt by $81 billion, according to U.S. Treasury data. Even before that, the central bank had trimmed holdings of dollars to 44 percent of its reserves at the end of the first quarter from 46 percent three months earlier. Holdings of Chinese yuan rose to 5 percent from 3 percent.

To contact the reporters on this story: Anna Andrianova in Moscow at aandrianova@bloomberg.net;Andrey Biryukov in Moscow at abiryukov5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gregory L. White at gwhite64@bloomberg.net, Paul Abelsky

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