Vladimir Putin presses ahead with plans for integrated currency market in CIS

Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has taken plans to create an integrated currency market in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) one step closer to reality.

On Friday – August 28, 2015, the Russian president submitted the relevant draft law, named “On Ratification of the Agreement on Cooperation in Organising an Integrated Currency Market in the Commonwealth of Independent States” to the State Duma, the lower chamber of the Russian parliament.

kremlin_Московский_Кремль,_фото_5.The bill aims to put into action parts of the Plan for Implementing CIS Joint Measures to Overcome the Consequences of the Global Financial and Economic Crisis for 2009–2010. It comes several years after the agreement for cooperation in organising an integrated currency market in the CIS was signed in Ashkhabad on December 5, 2012.

The agreement envisages that resident banks of the participants are given direct access to each other’s domestic currency markets to conduct interbank FX transactions on terms that are more favourable than those offered to domestic commercial banks.

This would help expand the use of national currencies in foreign trade payments and financial services and thus create preconditions for greater liquidity in domestic currency markets.

The aim is to strengthen domestic currency markets, along with FX co-operation among CIS members.

The draft law is in line with the provisions of the Treaty on the Eurasian Economic Union and other international agreements signed by the Russian Federation.

To view the official announcement on Kremlin’s website, click here.

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