Russia ranks among the top three yuan users in international payments: Forbes

New Delhi: Russia took third place among countries using China’s yuan in international payments in July as its share in the global foreign exchange market soared 6.3-fold in just three months, Forbes magazine revealed, citing statistics provided by the SWIFT international payment system.

Russia accounted for 3.9% of yuan transactions in July (up from 1.42 percent in June), according to SWIFT’s figures cited by the publication. The UK demonstrated higher results (6.35 percent), whereas Hong Kong remained the leader (70.93 percent compared with 73.82 percent in June).

According to SWIFT’s rating, Russia was followed by Singapore (3.77 percent) and the United States (2.98 percent).

Compared with June’s results, Russia moved up four notches, subsequently knocking out Singapore from the top three rankings. Russia just entered the SWIFT rating in April when its participation in global trade using the Chinese currency was estimated at 0.62%. Since then, Russia’s share has skyrocketed six-fold, SWIFT revealed.

In July, the yuan remained one of the top five most traded currencies as stated by analysts of the interbank system. Despite a decrease in the cost of transactions by 6.7 percent compared with June, the Chinese currency accounted for 2.2 percent of the total amount of international trade in July, according to analysts’ calculations.

On Thursday, trading in yuan surpassed the greenback for the first time, according to data disclosed on the Moscow Exchange’s website.

(Vinayak)