RMB Photo:VCG

Earlier, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said that the share of national currencies in settlements between Russia and China has been growing in recent years, with the process accelerating significantly in 2022.

Chinese yuan may replace the US dollar as the world's reserve and settlement currency in the next 10 years, the chairman of Russia's VTB Bank, Andrei Kostin, said.

"China is now the world's second-largest economy and will soon become the first. There is every reason to expect that the Chinese yuan will replace the US dollar as the world's main reserve and settlement currency as early as the next decade. In fact, the Central Bank of Russia is already investing its reserves in yuan, and more than 70 percent of trade turnover between Russia and China is settled in yuan together with the ruble," Kostin said at the Russian-Chinese business forum in Shanghai.

According to him, the monetary and financial system that has predominated for decades ensures the hegemony of the US and its Western allies, and the dollar and the euro account for three-quarters of global settlements. Kostin added that the dollar is the world's main reserve currency, but having announced a course of containment of Russia and China, the collective West, and the US in particular, have been actively using their currency as a weapon.

In March, Russia's President Vladimir Putin said it was necessary to promote the practice of mutual settlements between Russia and China in national currencies.

Russia has in recent months been strengthening its economic cooperation with China and adopting the yuan currency for trade. In early April, the yuan replaced the dollar as the most traded currency in Russia, and the Chinese currency continues to penetrate a number of other markets around the world.