India pays in rupees to buy UAE oil

The Indian Embassy in the UAE said that trade exchange with Abu Dhabi in the two countries’ local currencies has started.

The Embassy said in a statement, on Monday, that the Indian Oil Corporation paid rupees to the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) in return for buying one million barrels of oil from the UAE.

The operation comes after another deal that included selling 25 kilograms of gold by an Emirati exporter to a buyer in India for around 128.4 million rupees ($1.54 million).

Last July, during a visit by Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to the UAE, India signed an agreement allowing trade to be settled in rupees instead of dollars in support of India’s efforts to cut down US dollar transactions.

The two countries also agreed to establish a system to link real-time payments to facilitate cross-border money transfers, as the bilateral trade volume between India and the UAE reached $84.5 billion between 2022 and 2023.

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