Reuters: Chinese Companies Stop Cooperating With Russia

Many of them cannot get money for their goods.

As China's major banks suspend payments to Russian companies over fears of U.S. sanctions, some Chinese suppliers are considering using foreign exchange brokers operating along China's border with Russia.

“You just can't do business properly using official channels,” one Chinese businessman told Reuters, adding that big banks are now taking months rather than days to process payments from Russia, forcing him to use “unorthodox payment channels” or downsize his business.

A banker at one of China's Big Four state-owned banks told Reuters his bank has tightened controls over Russia-linked business to prevent sanctions risks. “The main reason is to avoid unnecessary trouble,” the banker said.

Since last month, Chinese banks have tightened their scrutiny of Russia-linked transactions or ceased operations altogether to avoid U.S. sanctions, the sources said.

“Transactions between China and Russia will increasingly take place through underground channels,” said the head of a trade body in a southeastern province representing Chinese businesses with Russian interests, but he noted that “these methods carry significant risks.”

One option is making payments in cryptocurrency (banned in China since 2021), a Russian banker in Moscow told Reuters.

Some rural banks in northeast China along the Russian border can still collect payments, but this has led to a bottleneck, with some business people saying they have been lining up for months to open accounts.

A chemical and machinery company in Jiangsu province has been waiting for three months to open an account at Jilin Hunchun Rural Commercial Bank in the northeastern province of Jilin, said Liu, who works at the firm and also asked to be identified by family name. Calls to the bank seeking comment went unanswered.

A bank official said firms exporting heavy equipment face stricter checks when receiving payments, Liu said.

The manager at the listed Guangdong company said their firm had opened accounts at seven banks since last month but none agreed to accept payments from Russia.

“We gave up on the Russian market. We eventually didn't receive more than 10 million yuan ($1.4 million) in payments from the Russian side, and we just gave up. The process of collecting payments is extremely annoying,” the manager said.

“I may gradually shrink my business in Russia as the slow process of collecting money is not good for the company's liquidity management. What's more, you don't know what will happen in the future. The channel can be shut completely one day,” said another businessman.