Moscow and Beijing near full “de-dollarization” of bilateral trade and economic ties
The US dollar and the European Union’s single currency, euro, are practically no longer used for financing bilateral trade and economic activities between Russia and China, according to President Vladimir Putin’s recently published interview given to Xinhua, the Chinese Government’s official state news agency, ahead of his upcoming, four-day visit, to China, beginning from August 31 to September 3.
Since 2021, the growth in the volume of the bilateral trade turnover between Russia and China totaled USD 100bn, Putin continued, noting that economic relations between the countries have reached an unprecedentedly high level during this period. In terms of bilateral trade volumes, China is the undisputed leader among Russia’s other foreign trade partners, while Russia was fifth in 2024 among China’s major foreign trade partners, Putin added.
These bilateral trade turnover figures are, however, only estimated in the US dollar equivalent, as the actual transactions and calculations are almost entirely carried out in the Russian and Chinese national currencies, Putin explained, noting that today the shares of the US dollar and euro in these transactions and calculations have long practically dropped to the level of so-called “statistical error margin.” Russia and China, in other words, have almost fully achieved “de-dollarization” of their bilateral trade and economic relations.
Moscow and Beijing have continued their efforts to further reduce trade barriers for each other. Specifically, Russia is now the largest exporter of energy resources to China, while China is the leader among countries exporting automobiles to Russia. Besides, there are ongoing localizations of Chinese automobile and other corporations in Russia and joint constructions of high-tech production companies and infrastructure facilities development corporations, according to excerpts from the interview.
Economic cooperation, trade and industrial cooperation between Russia and China, according to Putin, are developing in multiple areas. The upcoming visit to China, the Russian president continued, will certainly facilitate detailed discussions of new prospects for mutually beneficial cooperation between the countries and the new steps needed to further intensify such cooperation.
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