Sanctions Squeeze Russia on USD Payments to Shanghai Cooperative

SCO will likely switch to mutual settlements in national currencies in response

Special Representative: Russia because of sanctions is difficult to pay membership fees to the SCO budget

Translated from Russian

Special Representative of the President of Russia for SCO cases Bakhtiyor Khakimov said that the Russian Federation faces serious difficulties in transfering membership fees to the budget of the organization. According to him, the matter is in Western sanctions, and the documents of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization oblige to make transfers in dollars.

Bakhtiyer Khakimov in 2022Photo: Igor Ivanko, Kommersant

“This is not a secret, but we, for example, and I mean – the Russian side – are faced with serious difficulties in the transfer of our share contribution to the general budget of the SCO, because the bank is in China, and, according to the basic documents, the share contribution is paid only in US dollars,” Mr. Khakimov said after the meeting of the heads of government of the SCO countries in Pakistan (quoted by “RIA Novosti”). He added that now the SCO is discussing the possibility of switching to mutual settlements in national currencies.

At the end of 2023, there were difficulties with payments between Russia and China due to the threat of secondary sanctions from the United States. According to Reuters, due to problems with payments between Russia and China, transactions weighed in banks with a total volume of tens of billions of yuan.