Speaking at a meeting on the development of transportation infrastructure in Russia’s Northwest, the country’s Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin said that Russia is going through a significant trend toward de-dollarizing its economy.

“We recently had a detailed discussion on this issue at the Central Bank. There is a big trend for the de-dollarization of the Russian economy. The Central Bank has taken some important steps such that fewer dollar-denominated loans are now issued,” the Minister said on August 16, 2017.

According to the Russian official, the government is backing the ruble through such measures as introducing restrictions on loans in foreign currency. Central Bank statistics reflect that only 60 percent of Russia’s foreign debt was in U.S. currency in August. This is the lowest share of dollar-denominated debt since 2014.

Also, Russia’s investments in U.S. Treasuries decreased some USD5.8 billion, placing the country in the 14th place among the biggest U.S. creditors. Russia now holds USD101.9 billion worth of U.S. debt.

The Economy Minister sees the Russian companies’ transition to ruble-denominated loans as reasonable in the conditions of sanctions, a floating exchange rate, and high currency risks.

Commenting on the Minister’s proposal, Alfa-Bank’s chief economist Natalia Orlova stated that it was too early to speak about de-dollarizing the entire Russian economy. In the retail sector, for example, the share of deposits in foreign currency stands at 23 percent.

Earlier, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that officials in Moscow intend to reduce Russia’s dependence on U.S. payment service providers in response to new U.S. sanctions.