At the Valdai Discussion Club, Nov. 7, Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked, by former New Development Bank vice president and former IMF official Paulo Nogueira Batista, Jr. from Brazil about the role of alternative currencies to the dollar-dominated system.
Putin replied in a lengthy response, in part: “As for today the use of national currencies still has its effect. For Russia, for example, two-thirds of our trade turnover is already serviced in national currencies. As for the BRICS countries, 88% of our trade turnover is serviced in national currencies.
“We are now talking about using electronic tools for exchanging financial information between the central banks of our countries, the so-called BRICS Bridge system. We have discussed it at the expert level with all our BRICS partners. And the second system is also within the BRICS framework: we talked about settlements on securities exchanges. For today, I think this is optimal. This is what we are working on and what we should work on in the near future.
“I have heard a lot of talk, at the expert level and in journalistic circles, that we should think about creating a single currency. But it is too early to talk about it. And we do not have such goals among ourselves. Because in order to talk about a common currency, we need to achieve greater integration of economies with each other—that’s the first thing. And secondly, we need to raise the quality of economies to a certain level, so that they are very similar and compatible in quality and structure. The rest will simply be unrealistic, and may even be detrimental. So there is no need to rush into anything.
