Saudia Arabia says they are open to discussions about trade in currencies other than the US dollar, according to the kingdom’s finance minister.
The comment was during a media interview where the minister said, “there are no issues with discussing how we settle our trade arrangements, whether it is in the US Dollar, whether it is the Euro, whether it is the Saudi Ryal. I don’t think we are waving away or ruling out any discussion that will help improve the trade around the world.”
The world’s largest oil exporter, which has maintained a currency peg to the dollar for decades, is seeking to strengthen its relations with crucial trade partners including China. The kingdom is a pillar of a petrodollar system established in the 1970s that relies on pricing crude exports in the us currency.
Saudi Arabia is expecting to get more business from China in the near future.
China’s president Xi Jinping visited Riyadh last year and said that China would make efforts to buy more oil from the middle east and also wanted to settle that trade in the Yuan. Saudi Arabia is also working to provide support to Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, as part of the kingdom’s gifts to nations it deems “vulnerable.” in order to provide more stability.
