Saturday May 16, 08:50 PM
Russia to push ruble at G8 summit: Medvedev
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BARVIKHA, Russia (AFP) - Russia intends to raise ideas at the upcoming G8 summit for making its currency, the ruble, a viable global reserve money, President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday.
Speaking to reporters after talks outside Moscow with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, Medvedev said Russia had no say in setting the G8 summit agenda, which will focus on the global financial crisis.
But he stated: "Of course we have our own proposals. We are talking about the creation of foundations for a new financial architecture, indeed, a fair new financial architecture."
Medvedev said this included discussion of making multiple currencies attractive enough for states to hold as reserve currencies and use as means of payment in international trade, alongside the currently dominant US dollar.
"We have spoken about the possibility of using the ruble for this purpose," Medvedev said, adding: "We are not dropping this idea."
Medvedev and his mentor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, have for years evoked the possibility that the ruble could one day become an international reserve currency like the dollar.
Like Russia, China has also increasingly criticised the dollar-dominated global currency system and has been pushing for wider use of its currency, the yuan.
World economists however regard the prospect of either money supplanting the dollar or, to a lesser extend, the European euro, as a widely-held reserve currency as a long way off at best.
Russia also talked up its ideas for spreading the influence of the ruble ahead of the G20 financial crisis summit last month in London, but the ideas have been greeted coolly in the West and were all but ignored at the meeting.
"These are all issues for the future," Medvedev acknowledged, "but in my opinion they are issues for the near future.
"At the end of the day, we should emerge victorious from this crisis," he said.
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