The U.S. Dollar is in Trouble!

Yuan Trading Against Russian Ruble Said to Start Within Weeks in Shanghai

 China and Russia plan to start trading in each other’s currencies as the world’s second-biggest energy consumer and the largest energy supplier seek to diminish the dollar’s role in global trade.

China may start trading its currency against the ruble within weeks, three bankers with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg, and sent out a document last week allowing lenders to apply for ruble trading licenses, one of them said. Russia’s Micex Stock Exchange is making preparations to trade the ruble against the yuan in an initiative that has the backing of the country’s central bank, Ruben Aganbegyan, the head of the bourse, told reporters at a conference in Moscow today.

“Given the risk to the dollar and U.S. assets from their fiscal position they want to reduce their dependence on the dollar as an invoicing currency,” Bhanu Baweja, global head of emerging markets fixed income, currency and credit research at UBS AG, said in a phone interview from London. “It makes sense for two large economies to exclude a third, overly dominant economy from their trading equation.”

In the wake of the global financial crisis, which forced the U.S. economy into recession, both China and Russia have called for the dollar’s role in the financial system to be diluted. Volatility in major currencies is putting the global recovery at risk Zhang Ping, the head of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, said last month. President Dmitry Medvedev last year suggested Russia, holder of the world’s third-largest foreign-currency reserves, reduce its holdings of dollar.

Yuan-Ringgit Trading

The yuan slid 0.06 percent to 6.7953 per dollar today paring its gains since the central bank ended a two-year dollar peg on June 19 to 0.4 percent. Russia’s ruble weakened 0.3 percent to 30.9225 per dollar by 2:15 p.m. in Moscow today, and has fallen 2.1 percent versus the greenback so far this year.

“Gradually the dollar is being eliminated from the foreign-trade settlement flows,” said Dariusz Kowalczyk, a Hong-Kong based senior economist at Credit Agricole CIB.

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