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India says Russian oil now accounts for 12% of its overall purchases of the commodity, with the ratio surging six-fold in the past few months, as Asia’s third-largest economy seeks to slow inflation back to target.
“We speedily ramped up Russian oil imports from 2% to 12%,” Finance Minster Nirmala Sitharaman said at event in New Delhi on Thursday, referring to the share of Russian oil out of the total purchases of the world’s third-largest buyer of the commodity that imports 85% of its fuel requirements.
India has emerged among the biggest buyers of Russian crude, taking advantage of discounted barrels to provide relief amid elevated inflation and a record trade deficit. The South Asian nation has successfully balanced preserving diplomatic ties while ensuring the nation’s needs are met, the finance chief said.
“Sanctions are there but every country is finding their own ways to tackle it and get Russian energy supplies,” Sitharaman said, amid mounting pressures on India to join a US-led efforts to cap the price of Russian oil.
She also defended India’s decision to impose export duties on iron, saying the move “has shown good results” as part of a broader government measure to tame price pressures. Much of inflation management, she added, actually falls “outside the ambit of monetary policy.”
The Reserve Bank of India has done its share by raising the policy rate by a total of 140 basis points in three moves this year to help cool inflation back to within its 2%-6% target. The RBI will hold its next monetary policy review on Sept. 30.
