Maduro to ditch US dollar in Venezuela's economic transactions
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela, on December 8, 2020 (Reuters)
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced on Tuesday that his country will move forward on the path of abandoning the dollar in economic transactions.
Speaking to local media, Maduro said, "This is the path of Venezuela and the path of a free economy where currencies are not used to punish countries and impose sanctions."
Record inflation in the West has pushed countries around the world to find alternatives to the US dollar and its financial institutions, in an indication of the Yuan's rising international significance.
In early May, Argentine President Alberto Fernandez and his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, pledged to develop a framework for using their own currencies in bilateral commerce amid a rising trend of many nations dumping the US dollar in trade transactions.
In April, Argentine Economy Minister Sergio Massa confirmed that Argentina will begin paying for Chinese imports in yuan rather than US dollars, in an effort to protect the country's decreasing foreign currency reserves.
The announcement came shortly after Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called from China on countries of the Global South to work toward ditching the USDin their international trade and resort to their own currencies instead.
In late March, China and Brazil struck a deal to ditch the US dollar in their bilateral transactions, which is expected to reduce investment costs and develop economic ties between the two countries.
During the same month, the yuan overtook the US dollar in China's cross-border trade transactions, dealing a new major blow to the green note that is witnessing a global decline in its position as the top reserve currency.
Iraq's central bank announced in February that it would allow commerce with China to be settled directly in yuan for the first time.
And in January, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said the BRICS club consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa seeks to discover a way of bypassing the dollar to create a fairer payment system that would not be skewed toward wealthy countries.