MOSCOW, Mar 23 (AP) \u2014 President Vladimir Putin announced Wednesday that Russia will demand that \u201cunfriendly\u2033 countries pay for Russian natural gas exports only in rubles from now on.<\/p>\n
Putin told a meeting with government officials that \u201ca number of Western countries made illegitimate decisions on the so-called freezing of the Russian assets, effectively drawing a line over reliability of their currencies, undermining the trust for those currencies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes no sense whatsoever,\u201d Putin added, \u201cto supply our goods to the European Union, the United States and receive payment in dollars, euros and a number of other currencies. As a result, he said he was announcing \u201cmeasures\u201d to switch to payments for \u201cour natural gas, supplied to so-called unfriendly countries\u201d in Russian rubles.<\/p>\n
The Russian president didn\u2019t say when exactly the new policy will take effect. He instructed the country\u2019s central bank to work out a procedure for natural gas buyers to acquire rubles in Russia.<\/p>\n
Economists said the move appeared designed to try to support the ruble, which has collapsed against other currencies since Putin invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 and Western countries responded with far-reaching sanctions against Moscow. But some analysts expressed doubt that it would work.<\/p>\n
\u201cDemanding payment in rubles is a curious and probably ultimately ineffective approach to attempting an end run around Western financial sanctions,\u201d said Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University. \u201cRubles are certainly easier to come by now that the currency is collapsing. But exchanging other currencies for rubles will be quite difficult given the widespread financial sanctions imposed on Russia.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hope that demanding payment in rubles will increase demand for the currency and thereby prop up its value,\u201d Prasad added, \u201cis also a false hope given all the downward pressures on the currency.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neil Shearing, group chief economist at Capital Economics, said: \u201cIt\u2019s not an obvious move to me, since the (Russian) economy needs a supply of foreign currency in order to pay for imports \u2014 and energy is one of the few sources left.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOSCOW, Mar 23 (AP) \u2014 President Vladimir Putin announced Wednesday that Russia will demand that \u201cunfriendly\u2033 countries pay for Russian natural gas exports only in rubles from now on. Putin told a meeting with government officials that \u201ca number of Western countries made illegitimate decisions on the so-called freezing of the Russian assets, effectively drawing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-187057","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187057\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}