After recent sanctions prompted the Moscow Exchange to suspend trading in US dollars and euros, the yuan now constitutes 99.6% of Russia’s foreign exchange market share.
Initially, in May, the yuan made up only 53.6% of the trading volume on Russia’s exchange. However, mid-June sanctions by the US led to a cessation of trading in dollars and euros. As a result, the absence of these major currencies caused the average daily trading volume in foreign exchange to drop significantly—by nearly a third to 282 billion rubles (approximately RM15.07 billion) in the latter half of June, as reported in the Bank of Russia’s financial risk review for June.
While the US dollar and the euro continue to be traded in the over-the-counter market, their turnover in June decreased slightly to 13 trillion rubles. Meanwhile, the yuan’s share increased by 0.8 percentage points, reaching 40%. Despite the trading disruptions, sales by major exporters remained robust, totaling US$14.6 billion (RM68.73 billion) last month.
