Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on September 1, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Putin proposes SCO members issue joint bonds and a payment system to enhance economic cooperation and counter Western sanctions.
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday proposed that members of the 10-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) should sell joint bonds, a step that would mark a major deepening of their economic cooperation.
At a summit of the group in China, Putin also floated the idea of a joint payments system for trade settlements.
The SCO, set up in 2001, is the successor to the Shanghai Five, a grouping of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, set up in 1996. It now also includes India, Pakistan, Iran, Belarus and Uzbekistan.
"We advocate the issuance of joint bonds of member states," Putin told SCO heads of state in China's northern port city of Tianjin.
He also said he supported "the creation of our own payment, settlement and depository infrastructure" and "the formation of a bank of joint investment projects".
"All this will increase the effectiveness of our economic exchanges and protect them from fluctuations in the external environment," Putin said.
Russia has been pushing for settlement mechanisms which avoid the U.S. dollar and the euro, after Western sanctions on payment systems and Chinese banks disrupted Russian trade following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Putin said the SCO economies had grown on average by 5% in 2024.
(Reporting by Reuters in Moscow; writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Joint bonds are debt securities issued collectively by multiple entities, allowing them to raise capital together while sharing the associated risks and benefits.
Trade settlements are the processes through which financial transactions are completed, ensuring that the buyer pays the seller and the ownership of assets is transferred.
Western sanctions are restrictive measures imposed by Western countries to influence the behavior of other nations, often targeting trade, finance, and economic activities.
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