By RIA Novosti,
Moscow : Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Wednesday said turning the Russian ruble into a regional reserve currency was an important strategic objective.
“In a period of global financial instability, we need to press ahead with the strategic objective of making the ruble into one of the regional (reserve) currencies,” he said after a meeting with Andrei Kostin, chairman of the state-run VTB Bank.
Kostin informed the president that the VTB branches in five former Soviet states already carry out ruble transactions.
With the dollar being too unstable to be a reliable reserve currency, the ruble has already begun to play the role of a reserve currency in these countries, he said.
He, however, did not mention the name of the countries. He said Moscow has become a global financial centre.
On June 8, the president told the International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg that turning Moscow into a financial world centre and ruble into a leading regional reserve currency was central to building a competitive financial system in Russia.