Former Minister for Economy questions value of Chinese yuan for Russia

Former Minister for Economy, head of Civil Initiative Party Andrei Nechaev doubts that the Chinese yuan is more valuable for Russia's international economic activities than the US dollar.

According to Nechaev, he is "somewhat pessimistic" about the de-dollarization of world economy.

"Why should other countries break the system of the movement of capital and settlement that took decades to build? Clearly, the only country that may hope for its currency to become a world reserve currency is China and its yuan,” Andrey Nechaev believes.

"This brings up a question, though. Since China always pursues its national interests in everything, are we convinced that we will need the yuan more than the dollar in, let's say, five years? I'm not sure that we can be 100 percent positive about it," he added, RIA Novosti reports.

The share of the dollar has indeed decreased in international settlements, albeit slightly. In general, nothing has changed dramatically yet, he believes.

Andrey Nechaev served as the Minister for Economy for just over a year, in 1992-1993.

As for de-dollarization, this is not a quick process for sure. The US dollar has been the world's reserve currency for decades. Changing this system, especially in the face of active opposition from the United States, is a very difficult nut to crack.

Nevertheless, the process is underway. Even Indian refiners start switching to the Chinese yuan in settlement for Russian resources.

Russia excluded the dollar from the National Welfare Fund last year. It is believed that the euro will also go this year, and Russia will thus leave only rubles, gold and yuan.

As for settlements in international trade, the share of the dollar exceeded 84 percent last year, having decreased by two percent compared to 2021. The share of the yuan increased to 4.5 percent. As we can see, there is no serious competition there at all. But that's for now.