This opinion was expressed by several economists including experts of the Moscow-based Centre for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting and the Institute of Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).
The countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), China, India, Iran, and Turkey may be interested in the formation of a non-dollar payment settlement system, according to the experts. The overall benefit for these countries will be a reduced dependence on reserve currencies that can be used as geopolitical weapons.
According to the economists, the internal value of this unit must be provided by the resources available to the participating countries, namely gold and precious metals. The unit’s rate will depend on the weighted average price of resources in the global market, while the conversion of national currencies into the payment unit at the time of foreign trade operations will be carried out by the clearing centre of the system.
It is obvious to Russia that any conflict of a political and economic nature can lead to a decrease in value of dollar and euro reserves, experts said. Using a payment unit similar to the European Currency Unit, a precursor to the euro, would solve the problem.
The newspaper noted that Deputy Minister of Economic Development Dmitry Volvach said at a conference on Tuesday that Russian authorities do not rule out the possibility of creating a payment unit with friendly countries but this is a matter for the future.