NEW DELHI: India is leaning toward continuing to import coking coal from Russia, the steel minister said on Sunday, seeming to buck a global trend to shun Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
“We are moving in the direction of importing coking coal from Russia,” steel minister Ramchandra Prasad Singh told a conference in New Delhi.
India plans to double imports of Russian coking coal, a key ingredient in making steel, the minister said. He said the country had imported 4.5 million tonnes but did not indicate the period he was referring to.
Western countries and Japan have slapped unexpectedly heavy sanctions on the government of President Vladimir Putin and people associated with him. India, a major buyer of Russian goods from commodities to weapons, has abstained from several key United Nations votes condemning the Feb. 24 invasion.
