April 21 (Reuters) - Demand for the Chinese yuan is growing in Russia, the CEO of the country's dominant lender Sberbank (SBER.MM) said on Friday, adding that the bank has at times made use of central bank currency swaps providing yuan liquidity.
The dollar was king in Russia for decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but over the past year the yuan has grown significantly in importance as Western sanctions over the Ukraine conflict and Russian countermeasures have drastically reduced Russia's ability to conduct business in dollars.
CEO German Gref said Sberbank was gradually raising its interest rates on yuan deposits and had resorted to borrowing from the Russian central bank in yuan several times.
Gref said shareholders at the bank's annual general meeting on Friday had supported the board's recommendation to pay a record 565 billion roubles ($6.94 billion) in dividends.
"Half of these funds will be paid to the state as our controlling shareholder," Gref said. "The other half will go to the more than 1.5 million people who are our private shareholders."
Gref said the share of non-residents' capital in the bank had fallen to around one third. That includes around 5% of non-convertible depositary receipts, he said, without specifying in which jurisdiction.
Sberbank will also contribute some profits to a one-off windfall tax that the government plans to levy to help cover its widening budget deficit. Gref said the bank would take advantage of an early payment option and direct around 10 billion roubles to the budget.
($1 = 81.4000 roubles)
