RT and other Russian media report that Secretary of the National Security Council Nikolay Patrushev said on April 26 that Moscow “is working on linking the price of the ruble to bullion and other commodities.” Patrushev, who gave an interview yesterday to the government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta, is reported by RT to have described a “two-loop monetary and financial system in the country,” which would involve “the provision of the Russian currency with both gold and a range of goods representing a currency value. As a result, the ruble exchange rate would correspond to its real purchasing power parity.” He stressed that it is important that the means of payment in the national financial system, the ruble, “is not tied to the dollar.” (https://www.rt.com/business/554553-russia-ruble-gold-standard/)
There continues to be little apparent connection of the Russian gold-ruble plans to credit for economic development, although Patrushev stressed that the national economy must also be “restructured on the basis of new technologies.” In the context of discussions of national-currencies trade with India and of meetings with Central Asian countries, however, the need for the ruble’s exchange with those currencies to support mutual investment in projects has been stated – for example, by Russian Trade and Industry Minister Denis Manturov at the Innoprom Central Asia industrial exhibition in Tashkent (see separate report).
