No need for panic on farm exports to Russia: Indian Exports Federation

New Delhi, Feb 28: The Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) has asked about two dozen export promotion councils under it not to unduly panic about the impact of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine, saying outbound shipments of farm, pharmaceutical and petroleum products so far remain out of the ambit of the American sanctions on Moscow.

Farm products made up 15% of India’s $2.55-billion exports to Russia in the first three quarters of this fiscal, while pharmaceutical products accounted for 15%.

The FIEO’s internal letter dated February 27 comes amid mounting concerns about the fate of India’s trade with Russia in light of the sanctions imposed on Moscow by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), a financial intelligence and enforcement agency of the US Treasury Department. The OFAC has, over the past few days, announced a raft of sanctions on select Russian individuals and entities in response to the Russian attack on Ukraine.

The apex exporters’ body has asked the councils to sensitise their members about various exemptions and guidelines that the OFAC has specified and the eight general licences authorising certain transactions.

“To ensure that sanctions and prohibitions on Russia have an impact on the intended targets and to minimise unintended consequences on third parties, the OFAC has also issued several general licenses in connection with these actions,” FIEO said.

“In particular, payments for energy are from production to consumption. The sanctions and license package has been constructed to account for the challenges high energy prices pose to average citizens and doesn’t prevent banks from processing payments for them,” it added.

According to FIEO, specifically, the OFAC has issued eight general licenses authorising certain transactions related to international organisations and entities; agricultural and medical commodities and the Covid-19 pandemic; overflight and emergency landings; energy; dealings in certain debt or equity; derivative contracts; the wind-down of transactions involving certain blocked persons; and the rejection of transactions involving certain blocked persons.

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