State Duma gives CIS banks direct access to Russian domestic foreign exchange market

ArmInfo.  The Lower Chamber of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, adopted in third reading law "On Ratification of the Agreement on Cooperation in Organizing an Integrated Currency Market of Commonwealth of Independent States", Economics and Life portal reports.

The agreement signed in Ashkhabad on December 5, 2012 envisages that resident banks of the participants are given direct access to each other's domestic currency markets to conduct inter bank foreign exchange currency transactions on terms that are no less favorable than those that are offered to domestic commercial banks. The agreement relates to the banks, which are established and operating on the basis of international agreements and are located in one of the Agreement participant countries.

The document, signed by Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan after entering to force, will be open for any CIS member country to join, as well as for joining of any other country, sharing aims and principles of the Agreement upon the participants' consent.

According to the Deputy Finance Minister Aleksey Moiseev, who was presenting the document, the Agreement will help expand the use of national currencies in foreign trade payments and financial services and thus create preconditions for greater liquidity in domestic currency markets. According to Leonid Slutskiy, who chairs the State Duma Committee on CIS, the ratified document will be of great importance not only for CIS, but for Eurasian space as well.