Experts suggested Russia to create a new payment unit

Western sanctions that cut off Russia from world capital markets and made it difficult to convert the ruble for foreign trade, as well as Russia's reciprocal intention to receive payment for gas exports to Europe in rubles, raised the question of creating a new payment unit for settlements with friendly countries. This opinion was expressed by several economists at once - experts from the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting (CMASF) and the Institute for Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), China , India, Iran, Turkey and a number of others may be interested in the formation of a non-dollar settlement system, these experts are convinced. The overall benefit of countries will be to reduce dependence on reserve currencies, which can be used by issuing countries as a geopolitical weapon.

New payment unit

One of the challenges that Russia faced after the introduction of tough sanctions since the end of February was the difficulty in making settlements for foreign trade operations, write the experts of the CMASF in an analytical note “On the ways of responding in the field of economic policy to the actions of countries unfriendly to Russia”, which was reviewed by RBC . This applies to both imports and exports, the payment for which has become impossible to make through the frozen foreign accounts of Russian banks that have fallen under the sanctions.

In the case of Russian exports, primarily oil and gas exports, the problem can be solved by making payments directly from the exporter’s account in a foreign bank or through a specially created institution that acts as an “aggregator of income” from the exports of oil and gas companies, analysts of the CMASF believe. These "petrodollars", accumulated in foreign accounts, can be used directly to pay for import deliveries to Russia, the center's experts point out. But such a solution, in their opinion, is possible only in the short term: after all, a single collector of export earnings may itself be included in the sanctions list.