Russian officials have repeatedly signaled their desire to conduct transactions with China using gold
This post first appeared on Russia Insider
Russia's largest, state-owned bank Sberbank announced on Thursday its Swiss subsidiary had begun trading physical gold on the Shanghai Gold Exchange.
Reuters reports:
Sberbank was granted international membership of the Shanghai exchange in September last year and in July completed a pilot transaction with 200 kg of gold kilobars sold to local financial institutions, the bank said.
Sberbank plans to expand its presence on the Chinese precious metals market and anticipates total delivery of 5-6 tonnes of gold to China in the remaining months of 2017.
Gold bars will be delivered directly to the official importers in China as well as through the exchange, Sberbank said.
Russia's second-largest bank VTB is also a member of the Shanghai Gold Exchange.
Russian officials have repeatedly signaled their desire to conduct transactions with China using gold.
According to Sputnik, progress made in promoting bilateral trade in yuan is the first step towards an even more ambitiouns plan—using gold to make transactions:
One measure under consideration is the joint organization of trade in gold. In recent years, China and Russia have been the world's most active buyers of the precious metal.
On a visit to China last year, deputy head of the Russian Central Bank Sergey Shvetsov said that the two countries want to facilitate more transactions in gold between the two countries.
In April, Sberbank expressed interest in financing the direct import of gold to India—also a BRICS member.
As we've previously reported, a BRICS gold marketplace could be used to bypass the dollar in bilateral trade.
This post first appeared on Russia Insider
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