According to Glazyev, the EAEU countries will be able to take a course towards “de-dollarization” if they reduce the level of external risks and integrate national payment systems, hedging currency risks and providing exchange liquidity for direct currency pairs.
The EAEU was established in 2015. It included Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. The Union ensures the freedom of movement of goods, services, capital and labor. It implies a unified policy, a customs code, the introduction of free trade zones – the participating countries do not pay customs duties, taxes and fees.
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At the end of March, experts from the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting (CMASF) and the Institute for Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences raised the issue of creating a new payment unit for settlements with friendly countries. They explained its necessity by the fact that Russia can hardly convert the ruble for foreign trade turnover and is cut off from world capital markets due to sanctions.
The CMASF specialists proposed to form a non-dollar system, where the internal value of the payment unit will be provided by the resources of the participating countries (gold and precious metals). According to their initiative, the rate of this unit will depend on the weighted average price of resources in the world market, and the clearing center of the system will be engaged in the conversion of national currencies into a payment unit at the time of foreign trade operations.
Such a settlement system may be beneficial for the EAEU countries, China, India, Iran and Turkey, as it will reduce their dependence on reserve currencies, experts believe.
The White House called the strengthening of the ruble “artificial pumping”
Deputy Minister of Economic Development Dmitry Volvach said that the authorities do not exclude the possibility of creating a payment unit in order to create a supranational financial regulator. However, first of all, Russia should get the maximum benefit from settlements with partner states in national currencies, as far as the economies, foreign and domestic trade balances allow.