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Egypt Tourism Ministry says settlements with Russia in roubles unlikely

HURGHADA, June 6. /TASS/. Egyptian Minister of Tourism Khaled Rami has said the introduction of payments in roubles between Egypt and Russia is unlikely.

"Honestly, I don’t believe in the possibility of the introduction of rouble settlements between the two countries," he said in an interview with TASS. "We’ve discussed only the issue of signing a certain barter agreement, which implies, in particular, natural gas supplies in exchange for rouble receipts from tourists from Russia. However, the difficulty is that the Central Bank of Egypt, the same as Russia, is in need of hard currency receipts, namely - U.S. dollars. So I don’t think that these plans will work." In addition, he said, the fact that the air transportation settlements are made predominantly in dollars should also not be forgotten.

However, the minister said, many stores and souvenir shops of Egypt’s resort cities, in particular, Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh, accept roubles.

The plans for the introduction of the Russian national currency settlement system between the two countries were announced earlier this year.

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