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China and Russia Speed up Settlements Using RMB and Ruble Directly

Well-known Chinese news site Netease recently reported that China and Russia signed a series of agreements in the financial area during the presidential summit on May 20 and 21. One of the agreements allows the rapid expansion of direct use of the currencies of the two countries for financial settlements. Today, China-Russia trade settlements are largely done in U.S. Dollars. Similar experiments started in 2008 on a very small scale in some areas on both sides of the China-Russia border. The two nations have decided to expand the use of their native currencies significantly instead of using the U.S. Dollar, especially after the Ukraine incident. The recent China-Russia announcement delivered at the Summit set a goal of a total trade volume of US$100 billion in 2015, and US$200 billion before 2020. However, the new agreement still faces challenges. For example the Chinese RMB is still not a freely exchangeable currency, while the Russian Ruble does not have a stable valuation in the global market. More improvements on both sides will be required.
Source: Netease, May 22, 2014
http://money.163.com/14/0522/02/9SQKCS2F00253B0H.html