From Bloomberg, July 19:
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will discuss paying for Russian energy imports with currencies other than the US dollar when he meets his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Tehran on Tuesday, according to Turkish officials familiar with the matter.
The two countries have been working on a proposal for local-currency trade payments, including for energy deals, a move that would help the government in Ankara slow the decline in its sovereign reserves, the officials said.
They expected Erdogan and Putin to take up the proposal on Tuesday on the sidelines of a meeting on Syria in the Iranian capital.
Russia remains a critical source of energy supplies for Turkey. It provided a quarter of Turkey’s crude oil imports and around 45% of its natural-gas purchases last year, giving Moscow a huge surplus in bilateral trade.
Turkey’s exports to Russia amounted to $6.5 billion last year, while its imports from Russia stood at $29 billion. Also, millions of Russians spend their vacations on Turkey’s Mediterranean Coast, spending billions of dollars on travel.
The mechanism under consideration could allow Turkey to use liras for energy imports, saving more of its foreign-exchange reserves, one of the officials said. Any payment made in the Turkish currency could later be used by Moscow to finance Russian purchases of goods and services from Turkish providers....
....MUCH MORE
Lira? Accepting lira in trade deals seems a little nuts.
Speaking of nuts, the Russians might be better off accepting baklava for their oil. Use hazelnuts for a tasty change of pace from the usual walnuts or pistachios and mmm, mmm, Turkish trade deficit solved.
