The Russian Ministry of Finance, Anton Siluanov, expressed his willingness to continue to service all the country’s sovereign debt obligations, although he warned that he will be forced to make payments in rubles, after the Treasury’s refusal to United States to renew the license that until now allowed payments in foreign currency.

“The current situation has nothing to do with that of 1998, when Russia did not have enough funds to pay its debts. Now there is money, and the willingness to pay is also present” said the minister, for whom it is a situation “artificially created” by a hostile country.

In this regard, Siluanov lamented that the US Treasury Department’s decision infringes the rights of foreign investors who had acquired Russian debt instruments and undermines confidence in Western financial infrastructure.

In this way, taking into account that the refusal to renew the license makes it impossible to continue servicing the state foreign debt in US dollars, payments will be made in rubles with the possibility of subsequent conversion to the original currency of the obligation through of the National Settlement Depository as paying agent.

The United States announced that it will not renew the exemption that allowed Russia’s sovereign debt payments to be processed “case by case” through US and international entities, which expires this Wednesday and had allowed the Eurasian giant to avoid its first ‘default’ in foreign currency since 1918.

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Source: dpa

La entrada Russia asks to pay its debt with rubles apareció primero en Bitfinance.

The Italian oil company Eni announced the opening of bank accounts in euros and items in the Russian financial entity Gazprombank in order to carry out the necessary transactions for the supply of Russian gas and thus comply with the new regulations required by Moscow.

These guidelines consist of “opening an account in the currency provided for in the contract, making a payment in that currency and making a statement saying that this is how the payment for the gas delivery in question is closed,” said the European official.

According to the information provided by the company, “the payment obligation can be fulfilled by transferring euros and this procedure should not be incompatible with the sanctions imposed by the European Union (EU) against Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine.”

The Eni oil group, controlled by 30.3 % of its shares by the Italian State, stressed that the Russian authorities have guaranteed that “invoicing and payment will continue to be made in euros”, as it is the currency established in the contracts and in within 48 hours a financial operator will make the change to rubles, without the intervention of the central bank of Russia.

Payment for Russian gas in stages

As will be recalled, the European Commission recommended not to open accounts in currencies other than those established in the contracts. The opening of an account in rubles would be violating the sanctions established against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

In principle, the Russian government established that countries interested in acquiring gas must pay in items. But a new Kremlin decree introduced a two-stage payment method consisting of two phases. First, making the payment in the currency of the contract, that is, dollars or euros, in a Russian bank. The second phase is to convert that money into rubles in an account of the same institution.

With this new procedure, the Russian central bank does not intervene in financial transactions, for which the sanctions established by the United States and the European Union will not be violated.

M. Rodríguez

Source: swissinfo.ch

La entrada Italian oil company opens ruble accounts to pay for Russian gas apareció primero en Bitfinance.

Russia and India finalized the creation of an international payment system in rupees and rubles in order to provide service to bilateral trade with a platform similar to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, SWIFT, which is not available to Russia as a consequence of the sanctions.

According to specialized sources, “India offered a series of transaction platforms of this type, of which the Russian authorities have accepted a specific network protocol” that will allow smooth transfers of import or export documents for operations in rupees. and rubles.

The new platform will be installed at the headquarters of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Russian state bank (VEB) and its implementation is expected to be finalized during the next week. In order to guarantee the proper functioning of both financial institutions they are working on a regulatory framework to carry out mutual transactions.

The system provides for transactions to be “settled through the rupiah debt account, which VEB will hold at the RBI. If a Russian importing company receives a shipment from an Indian exporter, VEB (assuming it is the importer’s bank) will receive from the local importer the rubles or dollars equivalent to the value of the business. It will then inform the RBI to debit the same amount of rupees from the rupees debt account and credit it to the Indian bank of the exporter.”

Expanding the market and business relationships

The sanctions imposed on Russia can benefit India’s economy by allowing it to expand the amount of exports and expand in the Russian market. During 2021 this country exported some 3,300 million dollars in pharmaceutical products, tea and coffee.

While India acquired from the Russians some 6.9 billion dollars in weapons, mineral resources, fertilizers, metals, diamonds and other precious stones, as well as oil. Some Indian media outlets recently noted “that the country’s leading refiner, Indian Oil, has increased purchases of Russian crude over the past month.”

India has been on the Russian market for a long time and participates in the state Farma program, which is dedicated to the development of the pharmaceutical and medical industry in Russia. The Russian ambassador in New Delhi, Denis Alipov, stressed that pharmaceutical companies can replace Western manufacturers that have left the market as a result of sanctions. “There are joint ventures for drug manufacturing in Russia and I think there will be more opportunities in this niche,” the ambassador noted.

M. Rodríguez

Source: actualidad.rt.com

La entrada Russia and India create payment systems similar to SWIFT apareció primero en Bitfinance.