Pak Sahafat – One of the most influential banker in Russia said: At the same time as the value of the Chinese yuan increases and while the world is watching the failure of the West in bringing Russia to its knees in the Ukraine war, the end of the dominance of the US dollar is near.
According to Pak Sahafat News Agency’s report on Saturday, Reuters news agency quoted Andrei Kostin, CEO of VTB State Bank – Russia’s second largest bank, as saying: This crisis, when China was becoming a leading economic power in the world, is the beginning of extensive changes in the world economy and weakens the globalization process.
Asked if the world is in a new Cold War, Custin said it is a “hot war” (an actual war in which the soldiers or armies of two countries directly engage each other) that risks More than the Cold War.
He said: The United States and the European Union will lose from their actions to freeze hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian assets, especially since many countries are moving towards settling their payments by removing the dollar and euro, and China is moving towards the cancellation of currency restrictions.
66-year-old Kostin told Reuters on the 59th floor of the large VTB Bank building: “The long historical period of dominance of the US dollar is coming to an end.” I think it’s time for China to gradually remove currency restrictions.
China understands that if it keeps its currency, the yuan, as an inconvertible currency, it will not become the number one economic power in the world, Costin said.
He added that maintaining reserves invested in US government bonds is dangerous for China.
Reuters wrote: The US dollar has dominated since the early 20th century, when it overtook the pound sterling as the world’s reserve currency, although JP Morgan (the largest US bank) said this month that there were signs of a declining role.
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China’s dramatic economic growth over the past 40 years, the fallout from the Ukraine war, and the US debt ceiling dispute have weighed on the dollar.
This media added: Kostin, a former Russian diplomat who served in Australia and England and entered the bank right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is one of the most powerful and experienced bankers in Moscow, who previously served as the head of VAB Bank.
Costin was sanctioned by the US in 2018 for what it called “Russian malign activity around the world”. After the war, he was sanctioned by the European Union and the United Kingdom under the pretext of being a “close partner of Putin”.
This banker said that the sanctions are unfair and caused by political decisions, the damage of which will return to the West.
He also said that the Russian economy will not be bankrupted by the West.
The International Monetary Fund in April raised Russia’s GDP forecast for 2023 from 0.3 percent to 0.7 percent, but lowered its 2024 forecast to 1.3 percent from 2.1 percent.
This Russian banker also stated: Sanctions are bad and of course we suffer from them. But we have adapted our economy to sanctions. At the same time, we expect the sanctions to be intensified, of course, some windows will be closed, but we will also find other opportunities.
Asked if Russia’s economy would remain a free economy, Kostin said: “I very much hope so.”