During the Q&A with Russian President Vladimir Putin at today’s VTB “Russian Calling!” forum, he was asked about the use of digital currencies and the declining role of the dollar in the world economy. “We and our BRICS colleagues are trying to pay due attention to this,” Putin said. “I repeat, this is not only because someone is creating some problems for us, and they are, naturally, serious, and to a certain extent the problems with settlements are an obstacle for us, but also because the most important thing is that the global economy is developing, our relations are developing, as I just said, answering your colleague’s question, with both large and small countries in terms of their economies. The number of partners is increasing, and everyone wants not only secure methods of economic communication and settlements; everyone wants modern means of making settlements, which would reduce costs and increase the reliability of the international financial sphere. Of course, this also implies the use of modern technologies, including digital technologies. And we will certainly do this. But this is not just about creating digital settlement systems.
“We, within the BRICS framework,” he continued, “have proposed to our partners, and in general this has been supported, the creation of such a digital investment platform, part of which would involve settlements in digital units.”
“We want to create a digital platform that would allow us to invest in promising, growing markets in South Asia and Africa, and to do it in a reliable way that would be protected from inflation and would allow regulators, central banks, to quickly and flexibly respond to the processes taking place in our association. That is, if we see a shortage, we could issue a corresponding electronic instrument. If there is an excess, we could remove something from the market, and so on. In principle, this is a fairly easy-to-create instrument, we just need to agree on the directions of its development and the directions of investment in various countries, in various projects.”
