"The volume of the US economy has decreased; the role of China and BRICS countries has grown; and it is a big mistake not to reflect this in monetary and financial settlements,” Andrei Kostin, the chairman of the Board and a member of the Supervisory Council of VTB Bank, stated at a round-table discussion “The CIS – modern reality and challenges to stable development”, held within the framework of the International Economic Forum 2014.
“The sanctions that the USA and the EU have already launched against Russia are a violation of any rules and codes of behavior of economic partners and subjects; they undermine the system of trust and relations globally,” Kostin said. He emphasized that the measures taken by the USA and the EU had damaged cooperation so much that it made a return to the world of six months ago impossible.
He added that Russia could react to the situation by turning to trade with China and providing settlements in yuan-rubles, as “there are no reasons to pay China through New York for anything.”
Kostin pointed out that Russia doesn’t use its opportunities within the CIS to their full extent. There is settlement in local currencies, but they don’t match the level of interfusion of economies that exists within the Eurasian partnership.
The presence of close ties in the post-Soviet space was stressed by Sergei Lebedev, the Secretary Executive of the CIS, who also spoke at the round-table discussion. The deputy director of the Russian institute for strategic studies, Tamara Guzenkova, pointed out that at the moment the Eurasian integration project is experiencing a difficult period due to the Ukrainian situation. According to her, political and geopolitical forces are trying to discredit the Eurasian project.
