A Russian company is bartering chickpeas for Pakistani rice as sanctions stop payments
A Pakistani shopkeeper arranges price tags on rice sacks at his grocery shop
Russia is continuing to feel the pressure from Western sanctions.
One Russian company is planning to barter chickpeas and lentils for Pakistani tangerines, rice and potatoes, according to a Tuesday report from Russian state-run news service Tass.
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.
Russia’s Astarta-Agrotrading will trade 20,000 tons of chickpeas in exchange for the same amount of rice from Pakistan’s Meskay & Femtee Trading Company in an agreement signed Tuesday, Bloomberg said, citing the Tass report.
The company will also trade 15,000 tons of chickpeas and 10,000 tons of 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 the likes of countries like Afghanistan and Iran who have also discussed barter trade with the Kremlin.
Russia also passed a bill in July that will allow trade payments in crypto.
Russia has struggled amid increasingly tight sanctions since 2022, which have steadily cut off its access to key financial support.
Even Chinese banks, the smaller of which were a key 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 its seen “signs of cooling domestic demand” as inflation rises — a dreaded outcome known as stagflation.
