KTFA:
Samson: On top of the yuan, Russia is heading to buy 70 billion dollars of “friendly currencies”
1st September, 2022
Russia is considering a plan to buy up to $70 billion in yuan and other friendly countries’ currencies this year to slow the ruble’s rise before turning to a long-term strategy to sell off its holdings of Chinese currency to fund investment.
The yuan extended gains briefly against the dollar and rose to the highest level in the session. The lira also rose 0.2% on the back of this news, trading 0.1% higher at 18.1754 per dollar in Istanbul, and this wave of gains included the Indian rupee.
This prospective plan is part of a set of measures to permanently get rid of an economic policy that lasted for a decade; The Kremlin is reforming its strategy amid the sweeping sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies following the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
The plan received initial support at a special “strategic planning” meeting held on August 30, of senior government and central bank officials, who had first put forward the idea in June.
On the other hand, this strategy highlights the extent to which sanctions have upended Russia’s economic strategy with about half of its $640 billion foreign exchange reserves frozen after February, leaving the Kremlin with no access to the funds it spent years providing. for a day; It contained spending operations and saved hundreds of billions of dollars, euros and other foreign currencies as a way to protect the economy from the rise and fall of oil prices.
The plan includes flooding banks with “soft currencies” for the time being, because efforts to divert trade away from the dollar and the euro have so far made limited progress because Russia’s trading partners are not eager to receive payments in their countries’ currencies.
Russia has steadily increased its investments in yuan as part of a diversification drive to become one of the largest holders of Chinese currency reserves in the world, but although these assets have not been frozen due to US and European sanctions, Russia’s access to them remains limited.
The central bank stopped announcing the collapse of the currency in reserves after the imposition of sanctions; On January 1, it was reported that the yuan represented 17.1 percent of the country’s holdings, which amount to just over $100 billion.
The plan calls for that money (approximately $180 billion) to be spent over the next three to five years to help cover the huge cost of replacing foreign technologies and transforming infrastructure to move to new markets in Asia. It was not clarified how to deal with the ruble sales, it was only indicated that it would strengthen the ruble and help offset the inflationary effect of investment spending. LINK
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Samson: After 83 years, Poland demands 1.3 trillion euros in war reparations from Germany
1st September, 2022
On Thursday, the Polish government submitted a report on the damage caused by Nazi Germany during World War II, exceeding 1.3 trillion euros, and the report is expected to represent a basis for a request for compensation from Germany, which in turn refuses to pay.
Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said, during a press conference devoted to presenting a report on Poland’s losses during World War II, that “a huge amount of 6.2 trillion zlotys (1.3 trillion euros), and the mechanism that will lead to Poland receiving these compensations will be long and difficult. According to the German “DW Arabia” website. He pointed out that “a large part of the amount is compensation for the killing of more than 5.2 million Polish citizens,” adding, “The report estimates Poland’s material losses at 800 billion zlotys (170 billion euros).”
Since coming to power in 2015, Kaczynski’s Law and Justice Party has often emphasized the issue of reparations, and work on the report began in 2017. It was presented today, Thursday, at the Royal Castle in the Polish capital, Warsaw, on the occasion of the 83rd anniversary of the start of World War II.
“We have not only prepared a report which is an open document that will inevitably be completed, but we have also taken a decision, a decision regarding a subsequent move, and this move is to ask Germany to negotiate these compensations. This is a decision we will implement,” Kaczynski said. “The Germans occupied Poland and inflicted great damage on us. The occupation was criminal and brutal beyond belief, and it left consequences that in many cases continue to this day.”
Germany says that Poland abandoned receiving war reparations from East Germany in 1953, but the Polish conservatives deny this, and Berlin rejects any demands to pay reparations, as it considers that the issue has been closed since the conclusion of the 4+2 treaty, which allowed for the reunification of Germany in the early 1990s Past.
In the first official response to Poland’s new claims, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry said today, Thursday, that the issue of reparations for the Second World War is over.
“The position of the German government has not changed, and the issue of compensation is over,” the spokesman added in an email. “Poland waived more reparations a long time ago, in 1953, and confirmed this renunciation several times. This is the basic rule of the European system today. Germany upholds its political and moral responsibility for the Second World War.” LINK
