MOSCOW, October 6. /TASS/. Russia’s Finance Ministry has prepared amendments to the law on foreign exchange regulation and currency control, which is expected to minimize the fallout from sanctions against Russian legal entities, according to proposed draft amendments.
Particularly, the ministry suggests that Russia’s sanctions-hit companies should be allowed not to transfer foreign currency to accounts in authorized banks when funds are credited to accounts of legal entities - residents or to accounts of third parties in overseas banks. Another possible condition is claim offsetting on international trade agreements between residents and non-residents if the sides offset liabilities in the period when restrictions against the resident were in force.
Moreover, the same regulation is valid when ordering customers (non-residents) pay expenses on international trade agreements, when the resident enters into a claims assignment agreement on receiving funds for goods delivered to non-residents, works performed for them, rendered services and the like with the third party.
The ministry also suggests that when international trade operations are conducted without using banking accounts in authorized banks, transactions with residents will be settled in credit organizations located outside the Russian Federation, or "otherwise in accordance with the business practice and the conditions of international trade agreements (contracts) made by those residents and non-residents."
Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev said earlier that liberalization of currency control and de-dollarization of banks’ balance sheets would speed up Russia’s transfer to payments in the national currency. Russia is considering a transfer to paying in national currencies to its international economic partners in response to a possible ban on transactions in dollars for large Russian lenders by the United States.
The Finance Ministry does not rule out abandoning the dollar in oil supplies payments, switching to other currencies, including the ruble. First Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in August that the US dollar is becoming a risky instrument for payments.