While the west huffs and puffs, and threatens to unleash even more "costs" on Russia in the form of additional sanctions which will assure that Europe's latest deflationary recession is even more acute, an "isolated" Russia is looking to outside, and to the east, and as part of its most recent de-dollarization initiative, the Moscow Exchange announced it has started trading Chinese Renminbi-Russian Ruble currency futures.
From the press release [5]:
From 17 March the Moscow Exchange has started trading in a futures contract on the currency pair Chinese Renminbi — Russian rouble
The launch has been driven by a substantially increasing Renminbi turnover on the Exchange, growing volume of settlement in the currency between Russia and China as well as newly arising demand for hedging of such transactions.
Andrey Shemetov, First Deputy CEO of Moscow Exchange, said:
"The launch of the CNY/RUB futures is the next step made by the Moscow Exchange to offer a full range of Renminbi instruments and hedging tools to participants. We expect that the new contract will be liquid and in-demand as other Exchange's derivatives, and facilitate the trade turnover between China and Russia".
The contract is cash-settled against the Moscow Exchange CNY/RUB fixing.
The contract's expiry dates are every 15th day of March, June, September and December.
IM size is 12%.
Metallinvestbank will act as the market maker for the contract.
Moscow Exchange's turnover in the Chinese Renminbi grew 700% in 2014 to RUB 395 bln (CNY 48 bln). The record average daily trading volume of CNY 541 mln was seen in October.
Currently, the Moscow Exchange's derivatives market offerings include nine FX futures: USD/RUB, EUR/RUB, EUR/USD, AUD/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CHF, USD/UAH, USD/CAD, and USD/TRY, as well as three options: USD/RUB, EUR/USD, and EUR/RUB.
And in other news, US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew wonders why America's "international credibility and influence is being threatened [6]"...
