India’s new Foreign Trade Policy for 2023 is centered around boosting the use of the rupee, and moving away from the dollar, for foreign trade. So far, India has established rupee trade mechanisms with Iran for crude oil imports, along with 17 other countries, including Russia and Malaysia.
This week, according to Bangladesh’s website The Business Standard, Bangladesh became the 18th country. The $2billion or so in exports from Bangladesh to India will be completely transacted in rupees and takas, while only an initial $2 billion or so of exports from India to Bangladesh, about 15% of last year’s total, will be in rupees. For now, the balance is still in dollars.
