By Our Special Correspondent
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday that India has increased crude oil imports from Russia at discounted prices amid sanctions against Moscow as part of the country's management of inflation.
"I respect the prime minister's courage to take a very strong political decision at that stage, when world prices were unaffordable, to get it from Russia because they were willing to give it to you at a concession . . . and how fast we were able to do it," she said.
India's imports from Russia have increased from 2 per cent to 12-13 per cent of the total shipment of petroleum products as part of managing inflation, she said at a seminar organized by economic think-tank Icrier.
"I give credit to the Prime Minister's statesmanship to make sure that we maintain our relationship with all countries, yet we are able to get Russian crude... embargoes, embargoes but countries (including Japan and Italy) are finding their own way to get Russian energy (crude, gas) also managing inflation." A part,” she said.
Oil prices have surged over USD 100 per barrel due to the Russia-Ukraine war fueling global inflation. This has affected countries that are heavily dependent on imports.
India is heavily dependent on oil producing countries to meet its energy needs. 80-85 percent of the total energy requirement is imported from abroad. India is the world's third largest consumer and importer of crude oil.
Retail inflation eased to 6.71 per cent in July due to control in food prices, but remained above the Reserve Bank's comfort level of 6 per cent for the seventh consecutive month. Consumer price index-based retail inflation stood at 7.01 percent in June.
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