BEIJING, December 26. /TASS/. The West’s sanctions policy affects only technical aspects of Russian-Chinese trade, but not its volume and rates, Russia’s Ambassador to China Andrei Denisov said on Wednesday.
"The sanctions policy is significantly affecting the process of mutual settlements, payments and obtaining loans for many our [Russian] companies," Denisov said. According to the envoy, "the Chinese partners, for whom trade with Western markets, namely the United States, is of great economic importance, certainly fear that the sanctions could indirectly impact the Russian partners and as well as their own financial institutions and financial companies."
"And this is happening - the US sanctions policy is acting indiscriminately," the ambassador said.
"However, this is like bad weather in agriculture - yes, it rains, but we need to work, and so we continue working." "In general and as a whole, this [sanctions] somehow complicates only the technical aspect of our [Russian-Chinese] cooperation, but is not affecting its rates and volume," he noted.
Now Russia and China are taking steps to increase the share of national currencies in mutual settlements, the ambassador said. "Now nearly 15% of settlements in trade are in national currencies," Denisov said. "Now the mechanisms of settlements in national currencies are not perfect, but both sides understand this and fine-tune those mechanisms, which are convenient for us."
The diplomat stressed that searching for alternatives in settlements is a global trend. "We have been doing this together with China, and this effort has yielded results."