Transition to trade between CIS countries in national currencies justified

The transition to mutual trade between the CIS countries in national currencies and currencies of the states which are not displaying unfriendly behavior towards the CIS member states is justified. This opinion was voiced to journalists by First Deputy Chairman of the Executive Committee, CIS Executive Secretary, Leonid Anfimov at a joint meeting of the Council of Permanent Plenipotentiaries of CIS Member States and the Commission on Economic Affairs under the CIS Economic Council.

"About 10 years ago I said that the era of the dollar is over, and that this currency will lose its position by 2025. At least its influence on the development of the global economy will be substantially weakened. By 2030, the dollar as the world's reserve currency will be gone. Therefore, in my opinion, the transition to mutual trade between the CIS countries in national currencies or in currencies of states that do not take unfriendly actions against the countries of the Commonwealth is quite justified. First of all it is yuan and other currencies, which can be used as a reserve currency instead of dollar and euro," said Leonid Anfimov.

According to Anfimov, Belarus has long been under sanction pressure, but it's given an impetus to development. "The growth rate of production is constantly increasing and has not fallen, as it has happened in the states dependent on external factors. In their cases, the introduction of such sanctions pressure could have collapsed the economy," he stressed.

"In principle, we have a relatively self-sufficient economy. Our main market is the CIS countries. So we will be nor harmed that much by the pressure from the West. These sanctions will not seriously affect us in terms of economic growth. We will adjust all the ways by ourselves and make up for the losses that may arise in our economies in the shortest possible time," said Leonid Anfimov.

The participants of the event are discussing seven issues. They include the formation of the draft agenda for the next meeting of the Council of Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Independent States, analysis of the progress in preparing for the next meeting of the Council of the CIS Foreign Ministers, implementation of the road map to implement the initiatives expressed by the heads of delegations during the meetings of the Council of Heads of State, Council of Heads of Government, Council of Foreign Ministers and the CIS Economic Council.

Besides, it is planned to discuss the results of activities of the CIS bodies of sectoral cooperation in 2021 and the results of work of the Advisory Council for Labor, Employment and Social Protection of the Population of the CIS Member States during the past five years.

The meeting will also discuss the preliminary results of the action plan to implement the Memorandum on enhancing cooperation between the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Eurasian Economic Commission.