There was clearly extensive discussion among the participants in the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok this week, both in official meetings and also discussions on the sidelines, over the creation of a new international financial system. One interesting case is an interview that Andrey Kostin, CEO of Russia’s second-largest bank, VTB, gave to RT on Sept. 12.
“The dollar is illegally used as a weapon. It should not be done like this—we’re talking about finance and the economy, why should it be used for other purposes than this? It should be free from political and geopolitical risks. That’s the only reason” for de-dollarization, he stated. Kostin then addressed the need for a new financial system. “It is the right time for the Global South to start to build up this system because though the Global South removed the colonial system politically after World War II, the colonial system in the financial sector still exists, the empire built by the U.S. with the help of its allies still works,” he stated. Kostin added that it is now “very clear to most of the world that if we continue like this there will be a threat of the [U.S.] using the financial system as a weapon.”
“We see big changes in the balance of economic power in the world with such countries as China, Arab countries, and that allows us to create a different system which would be based on different principles—principles of independence, sovereignty, the use of currencies other than the dollar and euro.”
