MOSCOW, February 28. /TASS/. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov considers it too early for Moscow to initiate an international agreement on replacing the dollar as a key currency.
"I think theoretically, Russia is ready to do it even now, but we will not stand a chance to succeed. We need time," he said in an interview with Izvestia daily when asked whether Russia is ready to initiate such an agreement.
That said, "the de-dollarization process is underway now," Peskov noted. "But why has it started? Because the dollar issuer has started to undermine confidence in it as the main reserve currency. Of course, countries have become concerned, having started to gradually develop new options for making their payments, to rely more on their national currencies," he explained.
Russia has seen a lot of developments in this area, the spokesman noted. And "though the amount of those payments is very small compared with the total global dollar turnover," an increasing number of countries are shifting to payments in national currencies, and not only with Russia, but with each other as well, Peskov stressed.
"This process is irreversible, once the reserve currency’s credibility has been shattered it is hardly possible to hold it," he said.