OREANDA-NEWS. April 11, 2012. Sviaz-Bank and the Analytics Unlimited International Bank Club, with the MICEX-RTS and the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry as partners, met in a joint conference devoted to financial cooperation between Russia and China and continuing mutual expansion, which brought together over 130 experts on the subject, reported the press-centre of Sviaz-Bank.

The Russian side was represented by officials and employees of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), the exchange, bank associations, banks, companies involved in international business, rating agencies, and insurance companies. Experts on the Chinese side attending the event by invitation were representatives of the Bank of China (ELOS) and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. Victor Melnikov, Vice President of the Bank of Russia, was among the conference participants.

The participants debated in a free discussion issues such as internationalization of the yuan, prospects for cooperation between Russia and China, initiation of payments in yuan in Russia, and conditions to be created for managing assets and liabilities in the Chinese national currency.
According to Sergey Savinsky, chief research associate of the China Center for Social and Economic Studies of the RAS Institute for Far Eastern Studies, the yuan has so far a limited use in international settlements, which is the principal hindrance obstructing promotion of the yuan as an international currency. This situation is explained, in particular, by the short time that the yuan has been used in international commerce. China’s accrued investments over the past two to three years in other countries have run up to slightly over \\$300 billion. In Mr.Savinsky’s view, the yuan is used in equal measure with the pound sterling and can overtake the yen in the next few years to become the third currency, after the U.S. dollar and euro, in demand in currency trading.

Speaking about currency trading, Igor Marich, Managing Director for Money Markets of MICEX-RTS OJSC, said that Russian banks’ transactions in the yuan topped \\$1 billion in 2011, rising from USD 78million a month in the first quarter to \\$129 million a month in the fourth quarter of that year.

Sviaz-Bank started using the Chinese currency in mid-2011 by offering its corporate customers to open and maintain bank accounts, make cashless payments to and from accounts, including conversion, and initiate and maintain records of transactions under import and export contract in the Chinese yuan.

“Services in the Chinese yuan enjoy a steady demand, and we expect the Chinese currency to have a growing attraction for the Bank’s customers and counterparties,” said Nikolai Kuznetsov, Director of Sviaz-Bank’s Financial Institutions and External Borrowings Department.