RTTue, 22 Oct 2024 13:56 UTC
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told RIA Novosti on Tuesday. According to him, the group's members are cooperating in pursuit of their own interests.
Peskov dismissed speculation in the Western media that the participants of this week's BRICS Summit in Kazan intend to discuss a "plan to defeat the dollar."
An article published in The Economist on Sunday
claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to "build a new global financial-payments system to attack America's dominance of global finance and shield Russia and its pals from sanctions."Peskov responded:
"Cooperation within BRICS is not directed against anyone or anything - neither against the dollar nor against other currencies. It pursues the main goal of ensuring the interests of those countries that participate in this format."
Earlier this year, the Russian Finance Ministry revealed that Russia was working on
creating a settlement-and-payment infrastructure together with the central banks of BRICS member states. The new financial system - the 'BRICS Bridge' platform - will be designed for settlements in national currencies and will be independent of the dominance of third parties.
The BRICS Bridge could also provide member states with the
opportunity to make settlements using the digital assets of central banks linked to national currencies, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has said.
Russia has also ramped up efforts to
move away from the SWIFT system, since many of the country's financial institutions were cut off from the Western financial network in 2022.
Moscow has accelerated trade with international partners using their national currencies. The trend has been increasingly supported by BRICS members, which have shifted from using the dollar and euro for trade settlements.
Major BRICS economies have
already started ditching the dollar, as the weaponization of the greenback through sanctions has pushed businesses to look for alternative payment options.
As of the end of 2023, the share of national currencies in Russia's settlements with BRICS countries jumped to 85%, up from 26% two years ago.
Comment: Aiming to defeat the dollar? Of course not. The US has done that itself.
Boosting trade settlements in national currencies between members of the BRICS group is a strategic necessity, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said, adding that a shift from the US dollar would strengthen financial independence and reduce geopolitical risks.
Russia is currently hosting the 16th annual BRICS Summit in the city of Kazan. The group comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, as well as new members Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the UAE, which joined in January.
Speaking on Tuesday with the president of the BRICS New Development Bank, Dilma Rousseff, Putin emphasized that the use of local currencies instead of the dollar or euro "helps to keep economic development free from politics as far as possible in the context of today's world."
The unprecedented US-led sanctions campaign against Moscow due to the Ukraine conflict has forced Russia and other BRICS members to seek alternative ways to pursue trade. Russia's leading banks were banned outright from the SWIFT international payment system back in 2022 as part of the restrictions.
Last month, Putin said that Russia was already actively switching to the use of national currencies in cross-border trade with its BRICS partners, and that the group's members were jointly developing a payment and settlement framework to be used in trading.
In August, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said that over 95% of mutual settlements between Russia and its biggest trading partner, China, are carried out using the ruble or yuan.
Earlier this month, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said New Delhi was looking to secure its interests and find "workarounds" in settlements with global partners, including Russia.
Comment: Aiming to defeat the dollar? Of course not. The US has done that itself.