Amid the escalation of Western sanctions against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine of Ukraine, and in light of Moscow’s exclusion from the global financial system ‘Swift’, local companies in Kuwait are settling the payments of their purchases from Russia, by first transferring the money to China and from there it is transferred to Moscow.
Informed sources told a local Arabic daily that “some Kuwaiti companies have found the best way to settle their payments with Russia without violating the embargo by opening a bridge for their financial transfers from Kuwait to China, which allows organizing the movement of their payments back and forth, if any.
As for the government, the situation is different according to the sources. The investments of the Kuwait Investment Authority in Russia and Ukraine are negligible, in addition to the fact that government imports are also limited and are concentrated in grains, especially wheat and barley and often Kuwait has resorted to alternative markets to make up for the shortage.