As the Russian administration recently promised to provide India with a whopping discount of 25-30% on the purchase of crude oil, the Government of India has allowed investment in its domestic market, ANI reported, citing its sources on Thursday.
The decision of the Indian government comes at a time when the Russian economy has been impacted badly by a slew of economic sanctions imposed by the West and the European Union
Amidst the barrage of sanctions, India allowed Russia to invest in Indian corporate debt funds that could aid Moscow.
According to the ANI sources, the development can be seen as a return gesture for the Russian offer of providing oil to India at a huge discount. On the other hand, energy-starved India has already begun to avail of this facility and build enough buffer stocks.
Moreover, the European countries – the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and Canada— have banned certain Russian banks from SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications) – a secure messaging system for financial transactions between partaking banks that serves 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries and territories.
According to the news agency, Russian government officials have asked their Indian counterparts to relax India’s External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) framework. By relaxing the ECB framework, Russian entities are authorised to invest in bonds of Indian companies and pay for these investments through an account with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
