MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/. The legal framework to use cryptocurrencies in foreign trade will be established in January 2023, Chairman of the Financial Market Committee of the State Duma [the lower house of the Russian parliament - TASS] Anatoly Aksakov said at a press conference in TASS on Friday.
"We want to legalize cryptocurrencies to support foreign trade operations in January. This means the circulation of cryptocurrency as a legal tender in Russia will be prohibited, and responsibility in this regard will be spelled out. We nevertheless anticipate the opportunity of using cryptocurrencies to pay for foreign trade transactions, for example, for parallel imports," the lawmaker said.
Aksakov noted that he also expects to introduce a bill on the experimental legal regime, planned to be introduced concurrently with the mining bill. "We made such stipulations in the mining law that it allows launching an experiment without a draft law on the experimental legal regime. Still, I think we will put it forward in January also. They will probably run in parallel," he said.
The legalization of parallel imports in Russia in 2022 resulted in a weaker ruble at the end of the year, the Committee chairman said.
"This is associated to a significant extent with the rising demand for currency.At some point, it declined because it was impossible to pay for import supplies. New channels to deliver imported products to our country have been found recently, and the demand for foreign exchange is growing accordingly. This leads to an appreciation of currency and a higher demand for it. Therefore, the weaker ruble that we have seen in recent days and months is mainly due to this factor," Aksakov noted.