On Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Russia will open a discussion with countries in Southeast Asia on switching their settlement of cross-border trade obligations to national currencies. For the Kremlin, it is just the latest move in its global push to eliminate the use of the dollar and the euro in trade settlements.

In 2022, trade turnover between Russia and the nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) fell by 4.4% due to Western sanctions levied against Moscow in the wake of the military conflict in Ukraine, according to a statement by the ministry ahead of a visit to Jakarta, Indonesia by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

In a statement on its website, the Foreign Ministry said, “To improve the situation, Russia is working on launching consultations on introducing national currencies in mutual settlements.”

A political and economic union between the nations of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, ASEAN nations will be meeting in Jakarta this week with Foreign Minister Lavrov to build stronger ties.

Since the West imposed sanctions on Moscow, Russia and its partners in trade among the developing nations have sought various means of reducing their dependence on the Western financial system to settle trade obligations, among them using national currencies in lieu of the dollar or the euro.

The movement toward de-dollarization has grown elsewhere as well, with China now settling everything from trade with Russia to purchases of liquified natural gas from the Middle East in yuan, and India settling parts of its trade in rupees.

Meanwhile BRICs, the economic bloc comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, appears set to unveil a new gold-backed currency it is developing for use in trade settlements.