CAIRO — Egypt and Russia have agreed to use the pound and the ruble in their commercial exchange in view of the Western sanctions that blocked the access of Moscow to the dollar and the euro, an official source said.

Quoted by the daily Al Ahram, the Russian ambassador in Cairo, Georgy Borisenko, explained that his country uses a similar local currency settlement mechanism in its exchange with China.

For this purpose, he explained, the Financial Message Transfer System, created by the Central Bank of Russia to replace the Society for Worldwide Interbank and Financial Communications, better known by its initials Swift, is used.

Borisenko explained that work is also underway with the Central Bank of Egypt to soon approve the use of Russian Mir bank cards for payments made in this North African nation.

As part of the measures adopted after the conflict in Ukraine, Visa and Mastercard payment cards stopped their operations in Russia.

Several countries have already approved the use of Mir or are on the way to accept them, such as Turkiye, South Korea and Vietnam. The diplomat highlighted that the commercial exchange reached $4.7 billion in 2021.

Source: Nam News Network