A Russian company will barter chickpeas and lentils for Pakistani tangerines and rice. Russia has struggled to make payments across borders amid mounting sanctions from the US and its allies.
According to a Tuesday report from Russian state-run news service Tass, one Russian company is planning to barter chickpeas and lentils for Pakistani tangerines, rice, and potatoes.
The agreement comes amid reports of Russian companies struggling to make payments across borders amid mounting sanctions from the US and its allies since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
According to the Tass report, Bloomberg said Russia’s Astarta-Agrotrading would trade 20,000 tons of chickpeas in exchange for the same amount of rice from Pakistan’s Meskay & Femtee Trading Company in a Tuesday agreement.
The company will also trade 15,000 tons of chickpeas and lentils for 10,000 tons of potatoes and 15,000 tons of tangerines from the Pakistani company. Russia’s search for alternate international trade channels isn’t new.
In fall 2022, months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the country drafted plans to spend around $1 billion worth of Indian rupees secretly purchasing critical goods and investing in production in India, the Financial Times reported last month.
More recently, China is reported to be in barter trade talks with Russia, joining countries like Afghanistan and Iran that have also discussed barter trade with the Kremlin.
Russia also passed a bill in July that will allow trade payments in crypto. Since 2022, Russia has struggled amid increasingly tight sanctions, which have steadily cut off its access to key financial support.
Even Chinese banks, the smaller of which were an essential processor for Russian payments, have stopped offering support in recent months.
Russia’s economy has boomed throughout the war with Ukraine, but the Bank of Russia recently said it has seen “signs of cooling domestic demand” as inflation rises—a dreaded outcome known as stagflation.
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