Russian President Vladimir Putin stated during a speech at the plenary session of the second Eurasian Economic Forum of the EAEU on Wednesday that the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) supports partnering with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in order to realize the Greater Eurasian Partnership.
The economic meeting, which got underway on Wednesday in Moscow with 2,700 attendees from over 50 nations, has as its theme “Eurasian Integration in a Multipolar World.” The purpose of the meeting is to examine opportunities for BRICS, the EAEU, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to grow and potentially merge.
Putin said that the EAEU would continue to cooperate with China to encourage the docking of the EAEU’s development with China’s BRI and that the EAEU supports efforts dedicated to the development of the Eurasian area.
He said that the modern world is undergoing radical transformation and that more nations are working to create a new framework for international economic interactions that is more equitable and based on respect and mutual gain.
He slammed U.S. economic policies, saying it is “shooting itself in the foot” by fostering a development that is incompatible with its own. He said that anybody behaving otherwise “damages the global economy” and that Russia and its EAEU allies are interested in “honest, practical, and pragmatic cooperation” in this area.
Putin continued by stating that the development of a decentralized worldwide financial system would only be beneficial to the world economy and that it is crucial to coordinate efforts to create such a global system.
The EAEU, which was established in 2015, is an economic union of five Eurasia-based nations: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia.
First Deputy Prime Minister of Belarus Nikolai Snopkov said on Wednesday that Belarus aims to totally abandon the U.S. dollar and the euro in trade with Russia and other EAEU nations by 2023, echoing Putin’s desire for a decentralized international financial system.
Currently, according to Snopkov at the joint sitting of the House of Representatives and the Council of the Republic, around 8% of Belarus’s commerce with these nations is conducted in U.S. dollars and euros.
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