Putin Failed To Get Xi Jinping To Unblock Settlements Through Chinese Banks
- 5.09.2025, 13:18
Russian payments just hang up.
The problem of payments through Chinese banks, which Russian companies faced after the tightening of US sanctions, persists, Nornickel Vice President Anton Berlin said at the Eastern Economic Forum.
Although Putin has met with Si Jinping twice in the past year, and Russian officials have assured that difficulties in cross-border settlements have been eliminated, in reality, according to Berlin, payments continue to hang in banks for weeks.
"As soon as some new package of sanctions comes out, it doesn't matter, even if it doesn't affect our products or our company in any way, Chinese banks take a break for 2-3-4 weeks, they have to study the text, and payments just hang up," the top manager complained (he is quoted by Reuters).
Chinese banks also do not open a letter of credit for Russian goods, Berlin added.
Nornickel, owned by billionaire Vladimir Potanin, sells more than half of its products to Asia, with China becoming the company's largest customer. And although Nornickel is not directly under sanctions, banks and counterparties view it as a toxic partner.
"Legally binding sanctions play a smaller role, much more difficulties are related to voluntary restrictions that different market participants impose on themselves," Berlin said during a panel discussion at the WEF.
He said it would take at least two years to solve the problem, and to do so would require increasing the secrecy of Russia's international transactions, and in an ideal scenario, creating a "Foreign trade continues, payments continue. This shows that all participants in foreign economic activity, both inside and outside Russia, that is, our key trading partners, are interested in ensuring that payments continue to flow," Director of the Finance Ministry's Financial Policy Department Alexei Yakovlev said at the WEF.
"In general, our financial infrastructure, thanks to the efforts of both financial organizations, exporters, importers and a number of other, respectively, participants, it has shown its flexibility and adaptability," he added.