Venezuela's
President Nicolas Maduro (C) delivers a speach next to Vice-President
Tarek El Aissami (L) next to Venezuela's Minister of Science, Technology
and University Education Hugbel Roa (R) during a press conference to
launch to the market a new oil-backed cryptocurrency called "Petro", at
the Miraflores Presidential Palace in Caracas, on February 20.
Federico Parra—AFP/Getty Images
India doesn’t plan to use Venezuela’s ‘petro’ cryptocurrency to pay
for crude oil imports from the Latin American nation of which it is a
large regular customer, India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Monday.
India’s
central bank has issued an order saying that it doesn’t allow trade in
cryptocurrency, Swaraj said at a news conference, citing that order.
India’s average oil imports from Venezuela have recently slumped to their lowest level since 2012.
Venezuela
faces increasingly stricter U.S. financial sanctions and is trying to
circumvent them by offering the customers of its declining oil
production to pay in the El Petro cryptocurrency, touted by Nicolas
Maduro as the first-ever sovereign digital currency backed by oil
reserves.
India, on the other hand, faces an increasingly fatter
crude oil import bill, as oil prices have rallied in the past few months
and worsened Indian current accounts, with officials already worried
that the high oil prices and the fuel prices at five-year-highs have
started to affect economic growth.
India’s Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan complained
earlier this month to Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih
that rallying oil prices were hurting the Indian economy, and reiterated
the need for “stable and moderate” prices.
Last month, Indian media reported that Venezuela had offered India a 30-percent discount on crude oil purchases, but only if India agrees to pay in El Petro. India has refused.
Venezuela, for its part, has also recently suggested
that it was willing to accept rupees for the oil it sells to
India—another way of bypassing the U.S. sanctions on dollar-based trade.
The South American nation could then use its rupees to buy Indian food
products and medicines, Indian media cited Venezuela’s envoy Augusto
Montiel as saying last week.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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