Foreign Minister: Russia not trying to escape US dollar system

MOSCOW, Jun 9 (PRIME) -- Russia is not trying to escape a system based on the U.S. dollar, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday during the Primakov Regions forum.

“We are not trying to run away from the existing system and that is ultimately based on the U.S. dollar,” he said.

The problem is that the U.S. does not understand its responsibility as the issuer of the major reserve currency, or understands and abuses the role nevertheless. There have been several stories where everyone saw that the U.S. dollar may be used to achieve political goals, which makes it unreliable. Russia wants multilateralization to be respected by everyone, he said.

A recent decision of the Russian government to reduce the share of U.S. dollars in the National Wealth Fund to zero does not mean that the country will stop using the U.S. dollar completely.

“We are trying to rely on the other currencies more, on the national currencies when the issue is about bilateral trade with our partners, including China and other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and many other countries,” he said.

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