China offers to help Eurasia group with swaps, settlement

ST PETERSBURG, Russia Nov 7 (Reuters) - China is willing to offer currency swaps and trade settlement in national currencies to ease the impact of the global economic crisis on members of a Eurasian regional security grouping, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said on Monday.

"I propose widening the use of currency swaps and trade settlement in national currencies," Wen said in remarks to a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) hosted by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg.

Putin, chairing an open session of the SCO, supported Wen, who also proposed that China host a meeting of finance ministers and central bank heads from the six-member group on deepening financial cooperation.

China and Russia, holders of the world's largest and third-largest foreign exchange reserves respectively, have been promoting trade settlement in their own currencies to reduce their exposure to the currencies of the heavily indebted West.

The SCO groups Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as members. India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan are observers. (Reporting by Gleb Bryanski, Writing by Douglas Busvine)