New Delhi, May 6 : Against the backdrop of Russia cutting its usage of the US dollar, the Chinese yuan and Russian ruble are now the most used currencies in bilateral trade, which was unimaginable even two years ago.

"If we look at the structure of trade between China and Russia, more than 70 per cent of bilateral trade is settled in yuan or ruble", Anton Siluanov, Russian Minister of Finance, was quoted as saying by Tass Russia News Agency recently.

When asked if the ruble or yuan could replace the US dollar, he replied: "We are already looking at this."

Chinese Customs data showed bilateral trade turnover between China and Russia is $53.8 billion in the first quarter, and the figure between China and the US is $161.6 billion. This means China's trade with Russia is equivalent to about 30 per cent of its trade with the US. This key data may help people to have a more intuitive understanding of the current trend of de-dollarisation and currency diversification, Global Times said.

Robert Semonsen writing for the The European Conservative said that since the beginning of 2022, the ruble-yuan trade has increased eightfold. Additionally, it has been reported that Russia and Iran are working on creating a cryptocurrency backed by gold, with the idea that the gold-backed stablecoin could replace the US dollar in international trade payments.

China, the primary rival to the United States' global economic hegemony, and Brazil, which has Latin America's largest economy, reached a deal to dump the US dollar as an intermediary currency when carrying out trade and financial transactions. The two economic juggernauts will now conduct bilateral trade in their own currencies, exchanging yuan for reais, further internationalising the yuan, Semonsen said.