Leonid Petukhov is the head of the Agency of the Far East for Investments and Exports (IPA). Recently, Petukhov has said that a proposal is being considered to create an offshore financial centre on Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island. Located between the borders of Russia and China, the island would be a kind of hub for crypto trading.

The International Economic Forum recently held in St.Petersburg finished on Saturday, June 8th. Cryptocurrencies were a topic that came up quite a few times at the forum with a lot of representatives giving their thoughts on the issue.

Petukhov said that the government body was mulling over creating a financial centre on the Chinese-Russian border.

Located on the Amur River (the tenth longest river in the world), the island would be a good location for such a challenge. Located within the city limits of Khabarovsk, the island falls under the Chinese and Russian borders. This adds to the benefits of the location as it would allow for a collaboration between the two nations.

As reported by Anton Lucian for Be In Crypto:

“The purpose of the center, Khabarovsk says, would be to serve as a hub for cryptocurrency trading, crypto-related stock exchanges, and other foreign exchange markets.”

Lucian goes onto say:

“Currently, Russia boasts two other administrative districts designed as hubs of finance. One such district is located on the Russky Island in Vladivostok; another is located on the Oktyabrsky Island in Kaliningrad. Residents of these areas are fully exempt from income tax when it comes to dividends and profits from shares of foreign companies.”

But there isn’t this kind of centre in existence for crypto trading at the moment. This would make the Bolshoy Ussurisky island the first.

Russia is seemingly looking to learn from these experiments and craft their own economic ‘zones’ specialising in cryptocurrency trading and foreign exchange markets. By deciding to pick a location on the Russian-Chinese border, it remains to be seen whether Chinese authorities will comment on the proposal in the near future.