(The Hindu)
Representatives of atleast three Russian banks operating in India, including Vnesheconombank, Sberbank and VTB, will meet executives from top Indian banks in Mumbai on Monday to discuss rupee-rouble settlements between businesses of the two countries. According to sources close to the development, the meeting being organised by the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) will also see participation from the RBI and Russia’s central bank representatives.
India and Russia have been trying to establish mechanisms for trade in national currencies, bypassing the US dollar, for about a decade, but there has been little progress on the ground. The need for rupee-rouble trade has increased in the past one year as Russia continues to face pressure of US sanctions. India-Russia bilateral trade is highly dominated by defence deals and several Russian defence majors contracted by the Indian government are currently under US sanctions. Since the beginning of this year, Indian banks have halted defence-related payments worth several billion US dollars.
