The share of the Chinese yuan on the Moscow Exchange (MOEX) hit an all-time high in March, the Bank of Russia (CBR) reported in a monthly financial market overview published on Monday.
The yuan accounted for 39% of the total volume of trading in major currencies, up from 37% in February, according to the CBR. Meanwhile, the dollar’s share dropped to 34%, from 36% in the prior month. To compare, the greenback’s share a year ago was 87.6%, while the yuan’s was just 0.32%.
“Market participants continued to reduce the volume of transactions in ‘toxic’ currencies in exchange trading,” the regulator concluded. The dollar, along with the euro, was deemed ‘toxic’ because Ukraine-related Western sanctions against Russia jeopardized the use of these currencies in Russia’s transactions with foreign partners.
Prior to February, the yuan had never outpaced the dollar on MOEX in terms of monthly trading volume. By the end of February, the volume of trading in the ruble-yuan pair amounted to 1.49 trillion rubles ($18.1 billion) against 1.43 trillion ($17.4 billion) in the dollar-ruble pair. In March, turnover in the yuan grew further to 2 trillion rubles ($24.3 billion), against 1.7 trillion rubles ($20.7 billion) worth of transactions with the dollar.
www.rt.com/business/574518-yuan-displacing-dollar-russia/