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India may be in better economic shape to create a rupee trade zone

But the China factor could play spoiler

rupee trade
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India’s merchandise terms of trade—the value of exports over imports—from Russia has been worsening.

S DinakarIshaan Gera New Delhi
Before we examine the pros and cons of India’s attempts to create a rupee trading zone to wean itself off the US dollar, it would be illustrative to take a walk down memory lane.
 
In the early 1990s, a young trader fresh out of college who had started out at state-run trading house MMTC had his first brush with the Indo-Russian rupee trade. Officials from the former Soviet Union wanted MMTC to supply packaging machinery made by Austria, Vienna-based Starlinger against rupee credit accumulated by the Russians. MMTC would import the equipment to India, and re-export to Russia, for which