Trade among Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) members is now settled overwhelmingly in national rather than Western currencies, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
The CIS currently includes nine member states: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Moldova, and Uzbekistan. Ukraine and Turkmenistan hold participant status within the organization, although Kiev has moved to sever ties with it.
Speaking at an informal CIS summit in St. Petersburg on Monday, Putin said the strong volume of trade among CIS member states showed their cooperation is working, adding that Russia’s trade with the bloc totaled almost $90 billion in the first nine months of the year.
“The share of national currencies in settlements for commercial transactions between countries of the Commonwealth has already exceeded 96%,” he said.
Russia has ramped up the use of national currencies with its regional and international trade partners in recent years. The drive to ditch the US dollar has been gaining momentum among developing nations since the West unleashed its unprecedented sanctions campaign against Russia over the Ukraine conflict. The measures effectively cut the country off from the dollar- and euro-denominated Western financial system.
Putin also said that the CIS has, over more than three decades, become an authoritative regional integration group, and that its members build ties on the basis of “good-neighborliness,” “equal partnership,” and “mutual benefit,” while respecting and taking into account each another’s interests.
Established in 1991 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the organization aims to promote cooperation on economic, political, and security issues among its members.