Russia and India have agreed to study the possibility of using national currencies in bilateral trade, the Central Bank said in a statement Thursday.
The decision was made at a meeting of the banking section of the Russia-India intergovernmental commission, it said.
Major banks such as VEB, Sberbank and VTB on the Russian side and State Bank of India, Union Bank of India and Canara Bank on the Indian side took part in the meeting.
India’s Trade Minister Anand Sharma said last month that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin may visit India later this year, but the government’s press service said it was not aware that such a visit is planned.
Russia has long called for less global dependence on the dollar, and has reduced the share of the U.S. currency in its $400 billion reserves to less than 50 percent.
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