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Russia and China discuss prolonging currency swap agreement for three years

Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko noted that Russian-Chinese cooperation in the financial sector has been developing quite actively in recent years

MOSCOW, October 31. /TASS/. Financial regulators of Russia and China are working on prolonging bilateral agreement on currency swap for three years, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko tld reporters on the eve of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev's visit to China.

"At present, financial regulators of the two countries are working on extending the bilateral currency swap agreement of October 13, 2014 for the next three years," he said.

Prikhodko noted that Russian-Chinese cooperation in the financial sector has been developing quite actively in recent years. "The share of settlements in national currencies is gradually increasing: according to the results of 2016, the share of national currencies in payments for exports of Russian goods and services amounted to 13%, imports - 16%. In the Q1 of 2017, these figures rose to 16% and 18%, respectively," he said.

In order to expand the use of its national currency in international payments, China has developed a system of cross-border payments in yuan - China International Payments System (CIPS), and a number of Russian banks have already joined it, Prikhodko noted.

According to him, payment systems interaction is a timely issue of bilateral financial cooperation. Thus, the Russian National Card Payment System and the Chinese UnionPay have concluded contracts that ensure the processing of domestic Russian transactions using UnionPay cards in the Russian National Card Payment System and the provision of settlement services for these operations. In addition, in 2017, the pilot project of UnionPay and Rosselkhozbank for issuing co-badging cards Mir, Prikhodko added.

In October 2014, the Russian Central Bank and the People's Bank of China signed an agreement on currency swap (an instrument that enables each party to access liquidity in the currency of another country, bypassing the need to purchase it through foreign exchange markets). The volume of the swap line reaches 150 bln yuan ($24.5 bln); the term of the agreement is three years with the possibility of extension.