Bubles... Dollars... Yuan |
A look at how the use of bilateral trade settlement is growing
By Tony Richardson11/27/2010
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Russian President
Vladamir Putin announced in St. Petersburg, Russia, on November 23,
2010, that they will stop using the U.S. dollar to settle bilateral
trade and instead use the ruble or the yuan, according to a report in
the state-run China Daily. Bilateral trade between the two countries
stands at roughly $60 billion. Put in perspective, assuming two-thirds
of international trade is transacted in U.S dollars, this accounts for
0.3% of dollar usage in a global economy valued at roughly $30 trillion.
This agreement, then, is not particularly meaningful in terms of
U.S.-dollar utilization, but when we consider the exponential
implications, the effects are huge.
Consider the fact
that China not only has this trade-settlement arrangement with Russia,
but also has a growing list of settlement partners that so far includes
Argentina, Brazil, Belarus, Iceland, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. And
then, if each of these countries develops bilateral trade-settlement
partnerships in their own currencies absent the dollar, how would this affect our currency, Fed policy and the U.S. economy?
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