Since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Russia and India have been getting closer in trade relations. According to Indian data, the total trade between India and Russia has reached a record level of $39.8 billion before the end of fiscal years 2022 to 2023, making Russia the 5th largest trading partner of India. Of this, India exported goods worth $2.5 billion to Russia and imported goods worth $37.3 billion from Russia, resulting in a trade surplus of about $34.8 billion.
However, due to the tightening of financial sanctions against Russia by the West, Russia and India are unable to settle their trades in U.S. dollars. For this reason, the two countries reached an agreement to settle trade in local currency, but this has laid a difficult “landmine” for Russia. With a huge trade surplus, large amounts of Indian rupees began to pour into Russia. However, due to India’s currency regulation policy that limits the circulation and settlement of rupees outside India, Russian companies trading with India found themselves unable to convert their rupees into Russian rubles or other currencies.
As a result, India was also reluctant to export industrial goods to Russia for fear of Western sanctions on exports to Russia, thus blocking Russia’s access to the rupee. Previously, Russia had presented India with a wish list of imports involving about 500 commodities, which was ultimately rejected by India.
The combination of the two dilemmas eventually made the Indian rupee a “hot potato” that Russia could not exchange and was difficult to use.
Analysts point out that this dilemma highlights the difficulty of continuing the local currency settlement relationship between Russia and India. Besides Western sanctions, the low trade complementarity between the two countries is also a risk that cannot be ignored. In the future, unless Russia can include third-party trading partners such as China to optimize the existing trade model, the local currency trade mechanism between Russia and India will continue to be stagnant for a long time.
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自俄乌冲突爆发以来，俄罗斯和印度两国就在贸易关系上越走越近。据印度方面数据显示，在2022到2023财年尚未结束的情况下，印俄两国贸易总额就已达到398亿美元的创纪录水平，俄罗斯也因此一跃成为印度的第5大贸易伙伴。其中，印度向俄罗斯出口了价值25亿美元的商品，从俄罗斯进口了价值373亿美元的商品，俄罗斯因此出现了约348亿美元的贸易顺差。
然而，由于西方对俄罗斯收紧金融制裁，俄印两国的贸易无法使用美元结算。为此，两国达成了使用本币结算的贸易协议，这却为俄罗斯埋下了一个棘手的“地雷”。在巨大的贸易顺差下，大量印度卢比开始涌入俄罗斯。然而，由于印度的货币监管政策限制印度以外的地区的卢比流通和结算，那些与印度有贸易往来的俄罗斯企业很快发现，自己无法将手中的卢比兑换成俄罗斯卢布或是其他货币。
在此基础上，由于担心向俄罗斯出口商品会遭到西方的制裁，印度也不愿意向俄罗斯出口工业品，这再次阻断了俄罗斯使用卢比的途径。此前，俄罗斯曾向印度提出过一份涉及约500种商品的进口愿望清单，但最终遭到印度拒绝。
两种困境叠加，最终让印度卢比成了俄罗斯手中无法兑换又难以使用的“烫手山芋”。
分析师指出，这一困境实际上凸显出了俄印间的本币结算关系是难以延续的。除了西方制裁之外，两国间过低的贸易互补性也是不容忽视的风险。未来，除非俄罗斯能将中国等第三方贸易伙伴纳入其中以优化现有贸易模式，否则，俄印之间的本币贸易机制还将继续陷入长期停滞。
