Originally posted by sciwriter:
[qb] Will the ruble challenge the Euro? [/qb]
It's hard to say. Outside of Russia and the CIS countries, the ruble really still has very little significance, if any.
Within Russia, however, the ruble is making gains against the dollar, and financial analysts are even beginning to say it may begin to gain against the Euro, too.
Still, the ruble isn't considered an important world currency, and so I can't see it posing any real challenge or alternative to the Euro. That said, in the past few years, the Russian ruble has become the strongest currency (by far) in the CIS region, and so it's no surprise that it is becoming more popular to other CIS nations. (Did you know - Tadjikistan was the last former USSR country to give up use of the Soviet or Russian ruble. However, the semi-autonomous region of Transdnestria in Moldavia continued to use a mix of Soviet and Russian rubles until very recently.)
I suppose a test would be to see when a country NOT in the CIS would be interested in adopting the Russian ruble. Since most of Europe is now entering the EU, the only countries I could see this potentially (and even then, not likely) happening in could be Serbia and Mongolia, on the other side of the planet.
