Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Despite an embargo from the West, Russian oil still has great appeal. Even for countries in Southeast Asia.
One of the countries that has purchased it is Myanmar. Myanmar’s Minister of Investment and Foreign Economic Relations Kan Zaw revealed to Sputnik that Myanmar pays for Russian petroleum products in yuan.
“We use yuan and do not (pay) with rubles at the moment. But we are trying to make a kyat-ruble (reciprocally convertible) agreement. (The agreement) will be (signed) soon,” he said on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok, Monday (11/9/2023), as quoted Al Mayadeen.
Myanmar itself is one of the countries affected by sanctions by Western countries. This was due to the power coup carried out by the country’s military junta against pro-democracy groups in early 2021.
On the other hand, Russia also experienced a similar fate after the Russo-Ukrainian war. It is recorded that the West imposed thousands of economic sanctions on Moscow in the hope of losing the contents of its wallet to finance the war.
Last year, after Russia’s attack on Ukraine in February, the G7 countries introduced an oil price cap mechanism that limited the Kremlin’s war cash revenues while maintaining Russian flows into global markets.
Meanwhile, apart from Myanmar, the Philippines expressed interest in purchasing oil products from Russia and intends to discuss this issue at the upcoming Trade and Economic Commission meeting in October.
“As far as I know, there have been no shipments of oil products. But there is definitely interest. There are several issues that we are working on. I hope that next month there will be a meeting of representatives of the Russian Federation and the Philippines when the Joint Trade and Economic Cooperation Commission and oil will be discussed in there. But there are no details yet,” said the Philippine Ambassador to Russia, Igor Bailen.
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