India's Campaign To Boost Rupee Payments Gets Off To Slow Start: Report
NDTV
The RBI has allowed more than a dozen banks to settle trades in rupees with 18 countries since last year and is encouraging big oil exporters to accept the Indian currency for trade settlements.
India's year-old campaign to boost the rupee's role in cross-border payments has made little headway, according to people familiar with the matter, underscoring the challenges for countries trying to reduce their dependence on the dollar.
The Reserve Bank of India has allowed more than a dozen banks to settle trades in rupees with 18 countries since last year and is encouraging big oil exporters such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia to South Asian nations to accept the Indian currency for trade settlements.
But success has been elusive so far with total local currency trade volumes negligible at around 10 billion rupees ($120 million) since the project started, according to people familiar with the matter, who didn't want to be named as the figures aren't public. That compares with India's total goods trade of $1.2 trillion in the last fiscal year.