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Chinese banks’ referring to sanctions of third countries unfounded, says Russian official

Russia regularly interacts with the People’s Bank of China on those issues, the Central Bank representative said

BEIJING, November 21. /TASS/. Head of the Russian Central Bank’s representative office in Beijing Vladimir Danilov considers Chinese commercial banks’ referring to sanctions of third countries in transactions with Russian partners unfounded.

"Despite a wide correspondent network and growing number of payments in national currencies there are certain problems related to the fact that a number of Chinese commercial banks extensively interpret restrictive measures applied against Russia," he said on Wednesday.

"We regularly interact with the People’s Bank of China on those issues and would like to note that from its side the Bank of Russia creates no artificial barriers for Chinese or Russian partners. We assume that Chinese commercial banks’ referring to sanctions of third countries are unfounded as those sanctions do not restrict payments via the blacklisted banks," Danilov said.

However, "the problem exists nevertheless," he emphasized. "The US sanctions against persons included in the SDN (Specially Designated Nationals - TASS) list do not cover legal entities, in which mentioned people sit, unless they represent those enterprises in particular financial transactions," Danilov explained.

"Being on the SDN list does not cause expansion of sanctions to the whole bank. That is what one always has to point out as Chinese commercial banks extensively interpret the problem," he said, adding that in this regard the two countries’ central bank have agreed "to submit relevant explanatory files on a regular basis to solve those issues."