India making efforts to resolve the issue of rupee balances on accounts of Russian exporters - dep foreign minister Rudenko

JAKARTA. Sept 6 (Interfax) - The issue of rupee balances on the accounts of Russian exporters was raised at a meeting of the Russian and Indian foreign ministers in Jakarta, with India making an effort to resolve the issue, Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said.

"The topic was touched upon during the talks. Our Indian friends are aware of the problem and are making efforts to resolve it to mutual satisfaction," Rudenko told reporters.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Indonesia on Wednesday.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said later that the ministers also "discussed practical steps to further develop cooperation in trade, economics, energy, transport and finances."

"A mutual desire to increase coordination in multilateral formats, primarily in the UN, as well as on the SCO, BRICS and G20 the platforms, was underlined," the ministry said on its website.

Lavrov also held bilateral meetings with Salman Al Farisi, Secretary General of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), and with Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi.

Mikhail Zadornov, the former head of the Otkritie bank and a former finance minister, has said another non-obvious reason for the ruble's depreciation was rupees stuck in accounts. "Russia delivered $30 billion worth of oil and oil products to India in the first half of the year, and our imports from India are estimated at $6 billion-$7 billion a year. We have nothing to buy in India, but we cannot return these rupees, since the rupee is not a convertible currency, and $30 billion in six months is more than the entire current account surplus," Zadornov wrote in a column for RBC.

Central Bank Deputy Governor Alexei Zabotkin said the volumes of rupees in the accounts of Russian exporters in India differed from those estimates.