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Koos Jansen: China’s gold imports have calmed down

June 23, 2014 by · Leave a Comment 

GATA

8:41a ET Monday, June 23, 2014

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

China’s gold imports seem to have calmed down while maintaining a steady rate, gold researcher and GATA consultant Koos Jansen reports today at his Internet site, In Gold We Trust:

http://www.ingoldwetrust.ch/chinese-gold-demand-883-tonnes-ytd

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

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German gold stays in New York in rebuff to euro doubters

June 23, 2014 by · Leave a Comment 

GATA

By Birgit Jennen
Bloomberg News
Monday, June 23, 2014

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-23/german-gold-stays-in-new-york-i…

BERLIN — Germany has decided its gold is safe in American hands.

Surging mistrust of the euro during Europe’s debt crisis fed a campaign to bring Germany’s entire $141 billion gold reserve home from New York and London. Now, after politics shifted in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition, the government has concluded that stashing half its bullion abroad is prudent after all.

“The Americans are taking good care of our gold,” Norbert Barthle, the budget spokesman for Merkel’s Christian Democratic bloc in parliament, said in an interview. “Objectively, there’s absolutely no reason for mistrust.”

Ending talk of repatriating the world’s second-biggest gold reserves removes a potential irritant in U.S.-German relations. It’s also a rebuff to critics including the anti-euro Alternative for Germany party, which says all the gold should return to Frankfurt so it can’t be impounded to blackmail Germany into keeping the currency union together.

The Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, sent a delegation to the New York Fed’s vault in 2012 for spot checks on the hoard. As the gold’s guardian, the Frankfurt-based Bundesbank is obliged to ensure its safety. It says it’s sensible to store part of the reserves outside the country so they can be swapped more easily for foreign currency in an emergency.

Germany’s election in September hastened the shift when the Free Democratic Party, which flirted with bringing the gold home, dropped out of Merkel’s coalition and was replaced by the Social Democrats. Other supporters included Philipp Missfelder, a member of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union who quit as her government’s envoy for relations with the U.S. in April. Juergen Hardt, his successor, signaled a change of position.
Postwar History

“It’s my view that the gold reserves should be stored wherever they might be needed in an emergency,” Hardt, also from the CDU, told reporters in May. There’s no evidence that German gold at the New York Fed has been tampered with, he said.

German gold reserves, the second-biggest in the world after those of the U.S., totaled 3,386.4 tons on March 31, according to World Gold Council data. Due to German postwar history, the biggest part is stored at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; the rest is in London, Paris and Frankfurt.

After World War II and the export revival of West Germany’s “economic miracle” in the 1950s, the central bank accumulated dollars it swapped for gold at the Federal Reserve. With Germany split between capitalist west and the communist East German state until 1990, storing most of the gold abroad was a way to keep it out of Soviet reach during the Cold War.
Gold Inventory

That the hoard had never been counted and isn’t fully on German soil for easy access was fodder for critics.

Lawmakers including Klaus-Peter Willsch, a CDU member who opposed bailouts during the debt crisis, asked federal auditors for an opinion. Their report in October 2012 increased pressure on the Bundesbank, urging it to do an inventory and “physically ascertain” German gold holdings abroad.

The central bank met the critics halfway. Last year, it began moving the Paris gold to Frankfurt, pointing out that Germany and France now have the same currency, the euro. Enough of the gold in New York and London will be brought home so half the reserves will be in Germany by 2020.

German gold abroad is stored “only at central banks of the highest international reputation” in countries with “stable democratic structures” and high security standards, the Bundesbank said in a presentation in 2013 in response to bring-our-gold-home campaigners.
Storage Sites

“The Bundesbank never doubted the integrity of the foreign gold-storage sites,” Carl-Ludwig Thiele, the bank’s council member for payments and settlements, said in an interview on May 23. “We were able to see everything we wanted to see in New York. As far as we’re concerned, there are no more open issues.”

The Social Democrats, Merkel’s junior coalition ally, have signaled agreement with the Bundesbank position. Campaigners at “Repatriate Our Gold” also doesn’t see the Bundesbank going further anytime soon.

“Right now, our campaign is on hold,” Peter Boehringer, a Munich-based euro critics who co-founded an initiative to bring home all of Germany’s gold in 2012, said in an interview.

* * *

Help keep GATA going

GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:

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After port fraud, China’s vast warehouse sector under scrutiny

June 22, 2014 by · Leave a Comment 

GATA

By Melanie Burton and Fayen Wong
Reuters
Sunday, June 22, 2014

Shaken by a fraud investigation into metal financing in the world’s seventh-busiest port, banks and trading houses have been made painfully aware of the risks they face storing commodities in China’s sprawling warehouse sector.

The probe at Qingdao port centers around a private metals trading firm suspected of duplicating warehouse certificates in order to use a metal cargo multiple times to raise financing.

Some banks have asked clients to shift metal, used as collateral for loans, to more regulated London Metal Exchange warehouses outside China or those owned and operated by a single warehouse firm to limit their exposure.

“The banks still haven’t looked under the hood,” said an executive at a bank involved in commodity financing in China, referring to China’s warehousing sector. …

… For the full story:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/22/us-china-qingdao-warehouses-id…

* * *

Help keep GATA going

GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:

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To contribute to GATA, please visit:

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Mike Kosares: Reflections in a golden eye

June 22, 2014 by · Leave a Comment 

GATA

10:04p ET Sunday, June 22, 2014

Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:

With his new essay, “Reflections in a Golden Eye,” Centennial Precious Metals proprietor Mike Kosares provides a wide-ranging and even profound review of where gold has been in recent years and where it’s likely to go.

Kosares writes:

“There is a movement afoot among central bankers and high-profile economic thinkers of profound interest to gold owners, simply because it will play such a significant and direct role in physical gold demand over the coming years. That movement has to do with the inclusion of gold in central bank reserves — not necessarily as backing to their currencies but as a reserve asset to balance and hedge the risks of holding foreign exchange. Diversification is the mechanism at work in the transition of central banks from net gold sellers (and lessors) to net buyers, just as it is for the attuned private investors. That blueprint in my estimation is the future of official-sector participation in the gold market.”

Kosares also has some kind compliments for GATA.

“Reflections in a Golden Eye” is posted at Centennial’s Internet site, USAGold, here:

Reflections in a Golden Eye

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.


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CHART OF THE DAY

June 22, 2014 by · Leave a Comment 

By Toby Connor, Gold Scents

Toby Connor

GoldScents

A financial blog primarily focused on the analysis of the secular gold bull market.

If you would like to be added to the email list that receives notice of new posts to GoldScents, or have questions, email Toby.

A report from Jamaica about inflation’s crushing of the poor

June 22, 2014 by · Leave a Comment 

GATA

The Poor Are Being Savaged by the Jamaican Dollar’s Slippage

By Mark Wignall
Jamaica Observer, Kingston
Sunday, June 22, 2014

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/The-poor-are-being-savaged-by-the…

In the last year of his prime ministerial run from the violence-riddled latter part of 1980 to early 1989, the much-unloved, highly autocratic, and hands-on Eddie Seaga presided over an economy that saw the Jamaican dollar valued at US$0.18.

In 1989, J$100 could purchase basic food and grocery items for a family of five for a week.

In 2014 with the still-loved and admired Portia Simpson Miller in charge but seemingly disconnected from active governance, that same J$100 can purchase only four minuscule packets of black pepper. In 2014 the Jamaican dollar is worth, at today’s rate, US$0.0089, less than a cent.

… Dispatch continues below …


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Only very few of us will admit that the slippage in matters of governance and the spiral into systemic governmental corruption was given its birth during the disastrous run of the People’s National Party’s Michael Manley from 1972 to 1980. No leader was more loved than Michael, and as hands-on as he appeared to be, he was mostly led by his oratorical skills, his gross misreading of the United States, and his appeal to Third World causes on the global stages.

One writer, Donald Howell, captured it in poetic tones when he wrote in early June as part of a continuing series of Facebook: “The introduction of Democratic socialism in 1974 made the period 1974 to 1980 the age of foolishness, the epoch of incredulity, the season of darkness, and the winter of despair.”

Today the poorest among us would need J$200 to purchase a pound of chicken meat. They would need to find J$160 to buy a pound of turkey neck and though they would get back J$10 change after buying a tin of mackerel, that same J$10 cannot purchase a small packet of black pepper.

Chicken back, at J$80 per pound, would give back J$20, but again that J$20 cannot buy a little packet of black pepper.

Last week I purchased from a little corner shop a small tin of “bully beef” and a tin of condensed milk. In general I must confess that, unlike Chupski, I do not know the price of many items. I was, however, bowled over when the lady in the shop said, “Five hundred dollars.” In 1989 the same purchase, which in 2014 can get me only two items, could feed a family of five for five weeks!

Michael Manley was loved to the point of being worshipped. Portia Simpson Miller is loved and is always given free passes by her supporters, who place love for her as bigger a priority than the quality of her governance. Seaga in his days was barely tolerated by his ministers and the general population spoke of him as if he was the devil incarnate.

In grassroots terms, as much as Seaga was vilified and even hated, the poor among us could purchase “bully beef” and there was then no need for the company to manufacture two sizes. Today that same tin sells for about J$500!

Mincemeat and saltfish were staples among the poorest because the food items could “stretch.” The mince could be cooked up with diced potatoes and carrots and, with “nuff” gravy, could go a long way with rice. The saltfish could be cooked with chopped cucumbers and the whole could go a far way with boiled green bananas and yam.

Today mince hovers at around J$400 per pound, way outside the reach of the little woman and her three children. A pound of potatoes, if not purchased at Coronation Market in the volatile West Kingston, will sell at a corner shop uptown for J$140 — again, outside her reach.

A pound of rice at that same shop (J$60) would allow her to purchase only half a pound of chicken back to feed her hungry children. If she lives outside a rural setting, one dozen green bananas would cost her about J$130 and a pound of yam J$100.

So in 2014 food items that the poor could always fall back on in 1989 — saltfish, “bully beef,” mincemeat, and chicken meat — are totally out of their reach.

I can remember in late 1971 then-opposition leader Manley made much of a tin of condensed milk approaching J$1. He described the increase in apocalyptic terms. Today the poor have grown inured to the high prices and the food items out of their reach. That, of course, is good for the politicians as the nation accepts the numb feeling and struggles to make it to another day.

* * *

Join GATA here:

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Hill Country Resort and Spa
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Friday-Sunday, September 19-21, 2014

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New Orleans Investment Conference
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New Orleans, Louisiana
Wednesday-Saturday, October 22-25, 2014

https://jeffersoncompanies.com/new-orleans-investment-conference/home

* * *

Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006:

Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt:

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Help keep GATA going

GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:

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U.S. Neo-Cons Seek To Rewrite Iraq History (Again)

June 22, 2014 by · Leave a Comment 

By Jeff Nielson, Bullion Bulls Canada

What is the one thing more reprehensible than the which emanate from the mainstream media, our servile governments, and (of course) our banker overlords on a daily basis? The (bogus) Revisionism which follows it, which seeks to explain, excuse, or simply erase those preceding lies.

Within this general category of Revisionism; one sub-category stands out as an especially despicable form: the war-Revisionism which is an endemic component of propaganda campaign. Clearly the only thing which could possibly be more-evil than war itself is to attempt to “excuse”, “explain”, or simply erase the worst episodes of history.

This is especially true given that those entities with the strongest motive to engage in such vile Revisionism are the entities originally responsible for either perpetrating or provoking those wars. As such, it was the ultimate in repugnance this week when Bloomberg trotted-out the Bush Neo-Cons, architects of the Iraq War – and then allowed these career-liars to blame the (corrupt) regime which succeeded them for the mess they created.

Here history (real history) is unequivocal. It was these neo-cons who were solely responsible for creating all of the conditions which supposedly justified their invasion of Iraq. It was the neo-cons who fraudulently fabricated the pretext for invading Iraq. It was the neo-cons who brutally and incompetently bungled every aspect of the subsequent invasion/occupation, from a tactical and strategic standpoint. And it was the neo-cons who made their own “deal with the Devil”, in order to whitewash a thin veneer of “victory” over their humiliating defeat.

While George Bush Jr. is the Cowboy Bully who loved to take credit for “taking-down Saddam Hussein”; it was Junior’s daddy, George Bush Sr. (and the neo-cons of his era) who created Saddam Hussein. Imposing Hussein upon the people of Iraq as their “strong-man” (puppet) was supposedly the antidote to the “radical” government in Iran.

His role was at least to militarily preoccupy – if not engage – Iran, and to that end, Western neo-cons supplied Hussein’s puppet-regime with any-and-every piece of nasty military technology in their own arsenal (with the exception of nuclear weapons). Indeed; it was only because it was the neo-cons themselves who had originally supplied Saddam Hussein with all of his “weapons of mass destruction” that the Rest of the World took them seriously when they lied about what he supposedly still retained.

Backtracking even further; what made the government of Iran “radical”? After the U.S. overthrew the democratic government of that nation, and planted the brutal/corrupt “Shah” on the throne of Iran (as another of its Oil Puppets); Iranians not only had the audacity to remove that Thug from power, but they have resisted the endless/subsequent efforts (by the U.S.) to install a new Puppet-Thug in his place.

When Hussein, himself, decided to cease playing the role of Oil Puppet for the U.S.; it became the new obsession of the neo-cons to remove him from power, and install a more dutiful (and grateful) Puppet in his place. They fabricated a pretext for war, and then perpetrated an invasion which was tactically/strategically incompetent – even by the standards of the same military (and same neo-cons) which previously brought the world “Vietnam”.

The West Needs Shorter Leaders

June 15, 2014 by · Leave a Comment 

By Jeff Nielson,

Historically, those committing serious financial crimes were often executed for their transgressions (or sentenced to some similarly suitable punishment), and one nation (China) currently punishes its own financial criminals in this manner. Another commentator, Jason Zweig, has neatly summarized the history here:

The history of drastic punishment for financial crimes may be nearly as old as wealth itself.

The Code of Hammurabi, more than 3,700 years ago, stipulated that any Mesopotamian who violated the terms of a financial contract – including the futures contracts that were commonly used in commodities trading in Babylon – “shall be put to death as a thief.”

In medieval Catalonia, a banker who went bust wasn’t merely humiliated by town criers who declaimed his failure in public squares throughout the land; he had to live on nothing but bread and water until he paid off his depositors in full. If, after a year, he was unable to repay, he would be executed – as in the case of banker Francesch Castello, who was beheaded in 1360. Bankers who lied about their books could also be subject to the death penalty.

In Florence during the Renaissance, the Arte del Cambio – the guild of mercantile money-changers [i.e. bankers] who facilitated the city’s international trade – made the cheating of clients punishable by torture… [emphasis mine]

The rationale for applying this ultimate sanction to the most-serious financial crimes of today is simple. Even a modern-day Gun Nut, fully armed with quasi-military weapons can snuff-out the lives of no more than a few dozen innocents with their senseless slaughters.

Conversely, in our modern era of endless/unpunished ; the victim-counts run much, much higher. A single Financial Criminal (i.e. banker) can financially devastate the lives of thousands, or even millions. Collectively, today’s Financial Criminals are directly responsible for the 100+ million victims (across the West), what their parrots in the media call .

In reality; it is the $trillions which the Financial Criminals have cumulatively plundered in their endless frauds which has our economies to the point where the phrase “full employment” is now nothing but fantasy-words which issue from the mouths of lying politicians. It is this hollowing-out (through financial crime) which has also cut in half the for hundreds of millions more across the Western world, transforming our Middle Class populations into the Working Poor.

Individually, millions more Victims have suffered total financial devastation (i.e. bankruptcy) at the hands of the Financial Criminals. Foreclosure-fraud, stock market fraud, pension fraud, LIBOR-fraud, and assorted other, serial crimes have left a wake of financial carnage unprecedented in human history.

Then there are the mass-lootings of the bankers. When the reckless gambling of these Big Banks spins so totally out of control that they blow-up their own financial system(s); the Big Banks can (and have) looted wealth by the $trillions. The Big Banks on the losing end of these reckless, gigantic, and generally illegal bets are indemnified by the people, so that the Big Banks on the winning end can be paid off.

The travesty and fraud and crime here is that both sets of these Big Banks are mere tentacles of , a financial monolith which not only controls virtually all of the world’s Big Banks, but 40% of the entire global economy, according to the mathematical modeling of a trio of Swiss academics. The “gambling losses” are a fraud, massive paper-shams where one Big Bank tentacle incurs some gigantic, financial liability to another tentacle. Only the stealing (from us) was/is real.

Belgium: Money-Laundering Toilet For Unwanted Treasuries

June 12, 2014 by · Leave a Comment 

By Jeff Nielson,

Yet another, massive fraud was uncovered in the U.S. Treasuries market recently, this time through the diligence of the ever-astute, Paul Craig Roberts (along with Dave Kranzler). While this clumsy money-laundering operation was briefly mentioned in a which further exposed the fraud/lies associated with the Federal Reserve’s (phony) , there is much more which needs to be said here.

As Roberts and Kranzler note in their original piece, the simple numbers involved make it clear we are dealing with a pathetically transparent money-laundering operation:

From November 2013 through January 2014, Belgium with a GDP of $480 billion [supposedly] purchased $141.2 billion of U.S. Treasury bonds. Somehow Belgium came up with enough money to allocate during a three-month period 29 percent of its annual GDP to the purchase of U.S. Treasury bonds.

As Roberts also notes; Belgium is another one of the West’s , with a (large) national debt, a budget deficit, a trade deficit, and a current account deficit. It didn’t have any money to allocate to the purchase of U.S. debt – let along forking-over 29% of its GDP in a mere three-month period. The supposed “purchase” is not only (economically) impossible for this debtor-government, there could be no possible legitimate purpose for such a (relatively) massive accumulation of any foreign debt.

It is a prima facie fraud, and thus (inevitably) a money-laundering operation. “Somebody” gave the Belgian government the currency to fund this sham-transaction. However, many notable questions remained unanswered in that original piece. Among the most important of these questions are the following:

1) From where did the come to fund this purchase?

2) Why did the U.S. government (apparently) feel compelled to engage in such a clumsy money-laundering operation?

3) Who dumped over $100 billion of U.S. Treasuries onto the market, in the span of less than a week – which necessitated this emergency money-laundering operation to prop-up the Treasuries market?

4) What will eventually become of these (fraudulent) bonds on the books of Belgium’s government?

In the original Roberts/Kranzler article; they strongly suggest who slipped the Belgian government enough funny-money to fund this purchase: the Federal Reserve. But this is only half an answer. Where did the Fed get the $141 billion, to (purportedly) fund this money-laundering operation?

This money-laundering took place at precisely the same time the Fed was claiming to be beginning the of its own money-printing. As with Belgium’s deadbeat government; the Fed also did not have $141 billion simply “lying around” which it could allocate to that money-laundering operation, at that time. From where did the money come?

The Fed has not reported the creation of that amount of new/additional currency. It has not sold-off (supposed) “assets”, from which the proceeds could have been used to fund that (illegal) money-laundering operation. Indeed, the Fed itself is simply a massive toilet for worthless/fraudulent Wall Street paper. Ergo, if the Fed did fund this money-laundering operation, then it must have done so with unofficial – i.e. – currency.

Of course, it wouldn’t necessarily be the Federal Reserve which counterfeited the money to fund this laundering of U.S. Treasuries. As Roberts, himself, notes; this purchase took place through the “Euroclear securities clearing system”. Thus it would be simpler (and therefore more likely) for this counterfeit currency to be (phony) euros originating from the ECB rather than (phony) dollars from the Federal Reserve.

As regular readers know; the European Central Bank is nothing less than a with the Fed in perpetrating these endless monetary crimes/frauds, and both are instruments dedicated to serving . With the Fed (very publicly) claiming to have started “tapering” its own money-printing; the bankers would have likely found it more discrete to use their European tentacle for this particular crime.

Russian companies prepare to pay for trade in renminbi

June 8, 2014 by · Leave a Comment 

GATA

By Jack Farchy and Kathrin Hille
Financial Times, London
Sunday, June 8, 2014

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9f686816-ed51-11e3-abf3-00144feabdc0.html

Russian companies are preparing to switch contracts to renminbi and other Asian currencies amid fears that western sanctions may freeze them out of the US dollar market, according to two top bankers.

“Over the last few weeks there has been a significant interest in the market from large Russian corporations to start using various products in renminbi and other Asian currencies and to set up accounts in Asian locations,” Pavel Teplukhin, head of Deutsche Bank in Russia, told the Financial Times.


Andrei Kostin, chief executive of state bank VTB, said that expanding the use of non-dollar currencies was one of the bank’s “main tasks.”

“Given the extent of our bilateral trade with China, developing the use of settlements in roubles and yuan [renminbi] is a priority on the agenda, and so we are working on it now,” he told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a briefing. “Since May we have been carrying out this work.”

The move to open accounts to trade in renminbi, Hong Kong dollars or Singapore dollars highlights Russia’s attempt to pivot towards Asia as its relations with Europe become strained.

Sanctions are pushing Russian companies to reduce their dependence on western financial markets while US and European banks have dramatically slowed their lending activity in Russia since the annexation of Crimea in March.

The central bank is working to create a national payment system to reduce the country’s dependence on western companies such as Visa and MasterCard.

“There is nothing wrong with Russia trying to reduce its dependency on the dollar — actually it is an entirely reasonable thing to do,” said the Russian head of another large European bank. He added that Russia’s large exposure to the dollar subjects it to more market volatility in times of crisis. “There is no reason why you have to settle trade you do with Japan in dollars,” he said.

The chief executive of a Russian manufacturer that derives 70 per cent of its revenues from export in US dollars said his company had done the groundwork to move its contract settlements to different currencies in the event of further sanctions. “If something happens, we are ready to switch to other currencies — for example to the Chinese yuan or the Hong Kong dollar,” he said.

Alexander Dyukov, chief executive of Gazprom’s oil division, has said that the company has discussed with its customers the possibility of shifting contracts out of dollars, while Norilsk Nickel told the FT that it was discussing denominating long-term contracts with Chinese consumers in renminbi.

“It looks like this is not just a blip — this is a trend,” said Mr Teplukhin of Deutsche Bank. He added that Russian companies were able to hedge the risk of further US sanctions by “changing the letter of their contracts to allow them to change currency if it is necessary.”

Some politicians have suggested Moscow should respond to Western sanctions by entirely “de-dollarising” its economy.

But while in recent discussions with big business about how to make the economy less vulnerable the government has advocated listing back home and settling more trade in currencies other than the dollar, it has rejected more extreme measures.

“As long as Russia is not subject to systemic sanctions, which could bring an artificial limit to our economy’s access to dollars  …  then I don’t think Russia will take any steps in order to bring about artificial de-dollarisation,” said Andrei Belousov, economic adviser to Mr Putin.

* * *

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