Russia’s largest state-owned oil producer has completed the sale of over $2 billion worth of Chinese yuan-denominated bonds.
Rosneft said on Thursday that the company had successfully launched a bond sale backed by Chinese yuan as Russia forges closer ties with China and seeks to diversify transactions after major domestic banks were banned from SWIFT earlier this year.
Russia’s shift toward so-called “friendly” countries and currencies has prompted Moscow to accept the Chinese yuan, while trade between the two nations is growing. Both China and Russia have struggled for years to find an alternative transaction tool to bypass SWIFT, and the Kremlin’s Gazprom has already begun accepting payments for gas in both rubles and yuan.
President Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping met on Thursday to discuss both Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the future of the two countries’ prospects for economic unity, including trade that Putin says he hopes will boost to $200 billion.
