YEREVAN, July 26. /ARKA/. The Eurasian Development Bank proposed the central banks of the Eurasian Economic Union member countries to create a single monetary unit for calculations, Vestifinance.ru reports.

“There are some instruments designed for long-term use, which we propose to be discussed by monetary regulators,” said Evgeny Vinokurov, Director of the Centre for Integration Studies at the Eurasian Development Bank.

In his opinion, the single currency would facilitate mutual calculations.

The regional monetary unit is first of all needed for servicing trade flows, he said, and ‘it would be a payment unit of the Silk Road’.

Tigran Davtyan, financial policy director of the Eurasian Economic Commission, said on his side that this would be not a mere copying of other countries’ financial technologies.

In the future, he said, the introduction of a single Eurasian monetary calculation unit would contribute to the increase of the share of national currencies in trade among residents of member countries and to a more effective management of monetary risks and to the lowering of transaction expenses in mutual payments.

The central banks of the Eurasian Economic Union member countries are ready to consider the proposal, a source close to the Eurasian Economic Commission says.

The source says that Russia’s authorities insist on choosing the ruble as this single currency.

Vesti. Economika says referring to the Russian central bank’s figures that the share of payments in the Russian national currency in the world doesn’t exceed 1%, and in the Eurasian Economic Union the share is 60 to 80%.

The central bank also says that the ruble dominates only in bilateral deals with Russia, while the dollar dominates in deals among other countries. This means that the ruble, as regional currency, doesn’t serve as a universal measure of payment cost – it is only used as a calculation and circulation unit, but partially.

The Russian central bank is taking part in elaboration of a concept of formation of a common financial market of the Eurasian Economic Union.

Harmonization of national laws with taking into account all the countries’ interests is being considered now. --0---