We applied them because the external conditions throughout 2015 were persistently challenging, even extraordinary, and really required the Bank of Russia to take special substandard measures. The Bank of Russia used special-purpose refinancing instruments which somewhat backed up the real sector in the fields where the market failed: project financing, non-commodity exports, and small business. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Now, the upcoming transition to structural liquidity surplus is putting the expansion of specialpurpose instruments on hold. The efficiency of these instruments varies, that is why we will focus on fine-tuning them. Thereby, we have revised the criteria for driving non-commodity exports in order to focus on technological and manufacturing projects. As for project financing, we will refinance liabilities only for the projects already selected by the Interdepartmental Commission. The use of allocated limits only slightly exceeds 70% or 97 billion rubles. To solve the issue of external debt repayments, FX refinancing instruments were used. As a result, the external debt shrank by $ billion, i.e. by 16%, in 2015. The total debt reduction for the two years was 30%. It means that the debt burden for our economy has decreased considerably. Banks’ demand for foreign currency, provided by the Bank of Russia, was sinking noticeably over the past year and we are gradually abandoning these instruments. We expect banks to redeem the FX debt by the end of next year. We offered banks temporary regulatory easing to support the financial system.

At the same time, China is improving the global renminbi settlement and clearing system through a wider network of renminbi clearing banks and the upcoming Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) to lower the transaction costs for the renminbi relative to other major currencies. Currently, there are at least five hundred global investors, including sixty or more foreign central banks and sovereign wealth funds, that have gained direct access to China’s financial markets. Many more have access through the Hong Kong-Shanghai Stock Connect. Malaysian institutional investors seeking to internationally diversify their investments would need to intensify the learning curve process in the Chinese financial markets to realise its benefits. Malaysia: A pioneer in the cross-border use of the renminbi Malaysia was one of the earliest countries to recognize the potential role of the greater crossborder use of renminbi. Given China’s significance as Malaysia’s largest trading partner, the settlement of trade and investment in renminbi significantly lowers costs and promotes greater cross-border trade and investment activity. In turn, fund-raising activity in renminbi has become a means for Malaysia to utilise the renminbi liquidity obtained through trade settlements. Malaysia has a comparative advantage in this area, as the largest debt securities market in Southeast Asia and as a leading centre for sukuk issuance. As an early pioneer of renminbi initiatives, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) was the first ASEAN central bank to sign a currency swap agreement with the People’s Bank of China (PBC) in February 2009.