Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin Praises VEB.RF’s Efforts to Promote National Currencies Used Across SCO
During a meeting of the Council of Heads of Government (Prime Ministers) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin noted the importance of “developing alternative payment methods, independent of the dollar”. “We believe it’s a good idea to expand the use of mutual payments in national currencies,” he said. “It is necessary to reach agreement on this issue and then start negotiating the creation of financial mechanisms for SCO projects.” As a reminder, VEB.RF’s year-long presidency of the Interbank Consortium of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO IBC) resulted in the SCO IBC Council giving its approval to the Joint Approaches to the wider use of national currencies.
Speaking to the Council of Heads of Government (Prime Ministers), VEB.RF Chairman Igor Shuvalov said that the document approved by the SCO IBC “includes approaches such as providing mutual access to liquidity in national currencies, developing hedging instruments for currency risks, developing the capital markets of the SCO countries, facilitating the wider use of national currencies in foreign trade”. According to him, the document will help the SCO member states to set up a more resilient system of trade, economic and investment ties.
Another important outcome of VEB.RF’s presidency was the Road Map adopted to cope with the repercussions of the pandemic. “Its implementation will help to create new growth points, give impetus to trade and investment. We intend to share our experience of support for companies. Our plans include creating a base of potential joint projects, developing mechanisms for long-term lending to infrastructure, and promoting green financing,” he said.
Igor Shuvalov also spoke in favour of expanding the SCO integration processes and exchanging best practices between the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Eurasian Economic Union. “In the context of rebooting the post-pandemic economy, businesses in our countries could be more actively involved with integration projects across Eurasia,” he said. “I think these formats have enormous potential for complementing each other. The development banks can become a bridge to transfer best practices of integration projects.” Igor Shuvalov said that he was confident that this would help the SCO member states to adopt “a more transparent, inclusive, green and sustainable model of development”.
VEB.RF Completes Its Surety Bond Programme Helping Over 5 Million People to Keep Their Jobs and Income
- Surety bonds totalled 500 billion roubles
- The project was part of the Russian Government’s rescue scheme
- Businesses were given more than 250,000 loans
Under the first programme, VEB.RF issued surety bonds totalling 100 billion roubles to 15 commercial banks for zero-interest loans intended to help businesses to meet the immediate needs related to supporting and retaining their employees. VEB.RF’s surety bonds cover 30,688 loans given by commercial banks for more than 85 billion roubles.
The second package is a huge amount of 400 billion roubles in surety bonds issued by VEB.RF to commercial banks for 2% interest loans designed to help businesses to resume their operation. Under the lending programme launched on 1 June, businesses received 221,478 low-interest loans totalling about 415 billion roubles; 85% of each loan amount, including compound interest, is covered by VEB.RF’s surety bond. Overall, the programme covered 40 commercial—chiefly regional—banks.
“VEB.RF is actively involved with the government’s job retention scheme, including support for small and medium-sized enterprises. Our task was to promptly support commercial banks that gave loans to businesses. We created a unique guarantee product that made it possible to implement the government’s rescue scheme in the shortest possible time. And the VEB.RF team was able to meet the challenge. The low-interest loans with VEB.RF’s surety bonds helped businesses to retain over 5 million employees,” VEB.RF Chairman Igor Shuvalov said.