Alwaght- Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted a draft to the State Duma to ratify an agreement on integrated currency market among countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS ).
The CIS is a regional organization whose participating countries- Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Moldova, and Belarus- are former Soviet Republics, formed during the breakup of the Soviet Union .
“At the current stage of integration in the CIS, it is essential to create a common financial market that would strengthen trade and economic cooperation between the Commonwealth member states,” a statement published by Kremlin on August 28 reads, adding "The agreement contemplates direct access by the parties’ resident banks to each other’s domestic foreign exchange currency markets to conduct interbank FX transactions on terms more favourable than those offered to domestic commercial banks ".
According to RT, within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) the countries have also discussed the possibility of switching to national currencies. According to the agreement between Russia, Belarus, Armenia and Kazakhstan, an obligatory transition to settlements in the national currencies (Russian ruble, Belarusian ruble, dram and tenge respectively) must occur in 2025-2030.
Today, some 50 percent of turnover in the EEU is in dollars and euro, which increases the dependence of the union on countries issuing those currencies .
Outside the CIS and EEU, Russia and China have been trying to curtail the dollar’s dominance as well .
In August, China's central bank put the Russian ruble into circulation in Suifenhe City, Heilongjiang Province, launching a pilot two-currency (ruble and yuan) program. The ruble was introduced in place of the US dollar .
In 2014 , the Russian Central Bank and the People’s Bank of China signed a three-year currency swap agreement, worth 150 billion yuan (around $23.5 billion), thus boosting financial cooperation between the two countries .
