Russia is suffering painfully from European and American sanctions and is desperately trying to patch up the country’s economy. The latest idea of Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavrov is to convince Asian countries to stop using the dollar in trade.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been struggling to improve the country’s economy, which has been deteriorating rapidly since the start of the war in Ukraine, even if only marginally. The last idea of the Foreign Minister is desperate.
Sergey Lavrov wants Asia to abandon the dollar. Does anything stick?
Lavrov recently visited Indonesia, where he urged all countries in Southeast Asia to stop trading in the US dollar. The currency from the United States has been the world standard almost since the Second World War. This means huge problems for Moscow, which is saddled with a huge number of sanctions.
“To remedy the situation, the issue of holding consultations on the use of national currencies in settlements is being considered,” Lavrov said in Jakarta.
This is exactly what the head of the Foreign Ministry calls for. The authorities in Moscow are trying hard to ensure that Asians use their currencies in trade deals with Russia, and not convert all values into dollars. Thus, he repeats the encouragement that Vladimir Putin publicly advocated earlier.
Sanctions harm Russia
The statistics speak for themselves. In 2022, Russia’s trade with the group of 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations decreased by 4.4 percent. in annual comparison. Such a large decline is a very noticeable effect of Western sanctions on Moscow.
The same is true in the country. In its latest report, the Central Bank of Russia confirmed that the current account surplus in the second quarter of 2023 was $5,400 billion. This means a fall of a phenomenal 93 percent year on year. In the same quarter of 2022, the surplus amounted to USD 76 billion 700 million.
Source: Wprost
I am George Brown, author at Daily News Hack. I mostly cover economy news and I have been doing this for quite some time now. I have a lot of experience in this field and I’m always looking for new opportunities to learn more.
