BERLIN, September 14. /TASS/. The pace of de-dollarization globally has accelerated tenfold since the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine, far exceeding indicators from 15 years ago, Stephen Jen, ex-Chief Currency Economist at Morgan Stanley and a former economist at the International Monetary Fund, said in an interview with the German newspaper Die Welt.

Taking a look at the state of global currency reserves makes the global economy’s move towards de-dollarization more obvious, the economist said. "The share of the dollar in those currency reserves is falling rapidly, particularly in 2022. <…> [After the beginning of the special military operation] this fall accelerated - to the rates ten-fold higher than [were observed] 15 years ago," he said.

Most market watchers do not notice the de-dollarization as they "consider the nominal cost of central banks’ dollar reserves on the basis of figures published by the IMF," Jen said, adding however that "with changes in the cost of the dollar taken into account, it has lost around 11 p.p. in its share in foreign reserves since 2016."

The economist also believes that the US should urgently change its economic policy to keep the dollar from losing its importance as a currency in global trade as well. The country’s almost seven-percent budget deficit could lead to "investors losing confidence in the dollar" in the long term, which may "have unpredictable consequences" if China makes a push for its national currency as an alternative, he noted. In this respect, the US should follow the example of the Eurozone, where various measures are in place to prevent certain member states from going into huge amounts of debt, Jen pointed out.