High-level officials of the Reserve Bank of India and the Bank of Russia central banks met in Mumbai on April 20, to discuss the possibility of setting up a rupee-ruble payment system for trade between the two countries, including Russian oil and fertilizer exports. Although the topic of a non-dollar payment system has been intensely discussed among economists and other experts for some time, given the crisis brought to the surface by the sanctions imposed on Russia, this was the first formal meeting between central bank officials.
However, no agreement was reached at the meeting, according to the Economic Times, but it was a serious discussion which will now be taken back to their respective authorities. “Both are still in the process of finding the right way out. It needs some more time to conclude,” one of ET’s sources reported. “While the Russian delegation was larger than ours, the Indian (RBI) officials assessed every aspect of possible solutions amid the evolving scenario.”
