NEW DELHI: Nirmala Sitharaman, the finance minister, said on Thursday that importing Russian crude oil at the time of a global crisis was a part of the government's "inflation management".

Speaking at a function in New Delhi, she said that while maintaining connections with all nations, India was able to obtain Russian crude because of the "statesmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi."

The Finance Minister said, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was fully aware of the political repercussions of his decision to purchase Russian crude and "Here, I give the Prime Minister's statesmanship credit for how we managed to obtain Russian crude while maintaining our relations with all other nations. Now, even Japan practises this ".

She said, "At a time when the global crisis was becoming unaffordable for everyone, we reduced (fuel) prices in November 2018 and again in June 2022... at that point, taking a strong political decision... I respect the Prime Minister for his courage to get crude from Russia because they were giving it at a discount." Otherwise, only 2 percent of the Russian component was included in all of India's imports, said the Finance Minister. "It was ramped up to 12 percent within a couple of months," she added.

India's exports of goods fell 1.15 percent to USD 33 billion, and the country's trade imbalance increased to USD 28.68 billion, more than double, as imports increased by 37 percent. Oil, liquefied natural gas, and coal are all major imports for India, and their costs have all recently grown significantly.

The Middle East supplies 65 percent of India's needs for crude oil. Despite Western sanctions, India has increased its inexpensive oil purchases from Russia recently.

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