In reply to United States’s sanctions, Russia tries to reduce dependence of ‘US Dollars’

Moscow: Russia is on its toes to fight against the sanctions put by the United States. Russia has taken an impactful step by targeting ‘US Dollar’ and making a noticeable reduction of its usage in Russian economy. Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov shared this information. Back in 2014 when the United Stateshad forced such restrictions, Russia had ceased using a US ‘card payment system’ by developing its own independent system altogether.

‘Soon Russia will begin working to create an alternate system for America’s imports. Also, efforts will taken to lessen the dependency on US payment systems. Along with that, preparations are in place to reduce usage of US Dollar as a transactional currency. This has become a very important thing now’, these were the words said by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, which indicated reduction in the use and importance of US Dollar. He also said that if Russia doesn’t pull up its socks for this process then country will always continue to be trapped inUS’s clutches; which is exactly what they wants.

“The United States is trying to build up pressure on other countries by using its power in international economic system. Along with Russian companies other foreign businesses are also being targeted”, this statement was made by Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister. It is also said, European companies will also have to face tremendous losses because of US sanctions. It seems that Russian Minister has blamed US in this reference.

United States had forced sanctions on Russia in 2014 because of Crimea incident. Post these restrictions, Russia had set up ‘National System of Payment Cards’ for domestic transactions. This system brought up a card named ‘Mir’. According to ‘National System of Payment Cards’ approximately one crore forty lakhs of ‘Mir Card’ have been distributed in Russia. ‘Union Pay’ card which was consecutively developed by China after ‘Mir Card’ was also accepted by Russia.

Even though Russia has indicated a reduction in the usage of US Dollars after US’s sanctions, they have begun to take steps for it since a decade. On the basis of recession caused due to America’s home loan crisis, Russia had started reducing the prevalence of US dollars in its economy. In order to accomplish that, they have reduced the share of dollars from central reserves and have started increasing the share of gold, Chinese Yuan and Euro. After that, contracts were made to make transactions with China and few Asiatic countries in mutual currencies.

In 2015, the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin had openly appealed to ‘Commonwealth of Independent States’ – a group of countries supported by Russia to avoid using US Dollar.