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Transactions to be conducted in hard currency

India, Russia sign 5-yr trade pact
NEW DELHI. May 7 Russia ha* signed a new pact with India to conduct trade In hard currency and agreed to resume-export* of crude oil. India * top Commerce Ministry official said on Wednesday, report* Reuter
Commerce secretary AV Ganesan told reporter* Russian would resume sales of oil and petroleum product* to India suspended *1nee 1991, to the value of about 650 million do I lar syrar
The new five-year protocol signed on Monday "provides for the trade between the two countries being conducted In freely convertible currencies "
Ganesan said India s estl mated trade with former Soviet states wa* around two billion dollar a year Trade with Russia accounts for about 85 per rent of this
The new agreement re plcaccs a protocol signed last February tn which both side* agreed that Indo Russian trade would be denominated In for
elgn currency but paid In ru
Ganeaan said trade will now be conducted only In hard cur rency through ■ charing house mechanism (o prevent actual outflow of currency from either country
Under thl* mechanism, trade M-counU will be mutually offset tn a central account held by each country* central bank and designated commercial banks
The new protocol I* the only such trading agreement cash strapped India ha* signed with any country
Ganesan said India had told Russia It was concerned about the lack of progress In plan* to resume the supply of crude oil. kerosene and dk-rel under the February agree ment
"It ws* pointed out that without the oil supplies taking place in a regular manner, tt Mould he difficult to place the trade between the two coun tries on a viable footing," an Indian government statement
said
Russia stopped supplying crude oil and vital military spare peris to India last year
The Soviet Union was Indias main arms supplier, chief diplomatic ally and one of tt* main trading partners
India and Russia have both embarked on economic liberal I sat ion programmes and plan to make the rupee and the rouble fully convertible cur rencie*
On Monday. Russia s first Deputy Prime Minister Gennadi Burbulis said India and Russia had a common cause In freeing their rconomlri from pail "erroneous Ideological shack les while entering a new phase In bilateral cooperation.
Ganesan said an Indian Finance Ministry delegation would travel to Moscow next month to discuss India s debt to Russia estimated at about 380 billion rupee (14.6 billton dollar), mainly in credit for defence supplies.