- Friday, February 28, 2025
A team of Indian exporters has met Myanmar’s trade minister U Aung Naign Oo, who is currently on a visit to India, in Kolkata in the eastern state of West Bengal.
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA HAS urged its eastern neighbour Myanmar to quicken the procedure of trade settlements by means of mutual currencies, a mechanism which was earlier agreed upon, an exporters’ body official on Monday (12) said, according to Reuters.
A team of Indian exporters met Myanmar’s trade minister U Aung Naign Oo, who is currently on a visit to India, in Kolkata in the eastern state of West Bengal and raised the matter.
“Myanmar’s minister has assured the new mechanism would soon be operational,” PK Shah, former chairman of the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC), told the news outlet after the meeting.
The Southeast Asian nation, which is experiencing shortage of foreign exchange reserves, said last year that it would soon start accepting the Indian rupee, along with Thai baht and Chinese renminbi as an official settlement currency to reduce its dependence on the US dollar.
According to exporters, the arrangement would facilitate the export of pharmaceutical and manufacturing items from India as well as higher imports such as pulses, timber and other products from the neighbouring country.
Shah said trade between India and Myanmar would significantly increase from the current level of $1.8 billion once the new trade mechanism through local currencies was made operational.
India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India, had earlier authorised the state-run Punjab National Bank to open a special rupee vostro account (SRVA) for foreign trade settlements with Myanmar.
Under the mechanism, it would accept payments for all its exports to India in its currency (rupee) while the same export earnings could be used to make payments for goods and services imported from India, EEPC said, according to the Reuters report.
