Russia and Morocco can minimise the impact of Western sanctions against Moscow on their trade exchanges by resorting to barter and using currencies other than the dollar and the euro, said Valerian Shuvaev, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Morocco.

He did not rule out that trade between the countries could experience difficulties with payments as a result of the exclusion of several Russian banks from the SWIFT financial transaction system. However, he stressed that this measure affected "less than ten of the 300 banks in the Russian banking system.

According to the ambassador, Morocco's exports to Russia are showing a positive trend, as in 2021 they increased by 10.8% compared to 2020, to 435 million dollars. It is mainly represented by food and agricultural raw materials (46.7%), textiles and footwear (33.8%), machinery, equipment and vehicles (15.3%).

Morocco imports from Russia mainly mineral products (61.8%), products of chemical and rubber industry (27.2%), metals and their derivatives (5.5%), foodstuffs and agricultural raw materials (3.4%).

The ambassador also noted that Russian exports to Morocco are experiencing record growth and by the end of 2021 had increased by 58.5% over the previous year, exceeding $1.2 billion, which according to Shuvaev, is the best among all African countries.

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