Managed global inflation ...waiting for thank you: Jaishankar on oil buys

NEW DELHI: External affairs minister S Jaishankar has said that India should be given credit for managing "global inflation" by stabilising global oil and gas markets through its strategic purchase policies amid the Russia-Ukraine war and maintained that New Delhi has "a very powerful interest" to continue its ties with Moscow.

During a conversation titled 'How a billion people see the world' on Wednesday in London, moderated by noted journalist Lionel Barber, Jaishankar discussed India's impactful position in global affairs. "So, we've actually softened the oil markets and the gas markets through our purchase policies. We have, as a consequence, actually managed global inflation. I'm waiting for the thank you," he said.

Jaishankar also highlighted the balance between principles and interests in geopolitics. "We have learned the hard way that people speak of principles... But they are tempered by interest. In this particular case, we have a very powerful interest to keep our relationship with Russia."


He elaborated, "When it comes to the purchase...I think global oil prices would have gone higher because we would have gone into the same market to the same suppliers that Europe would have done and as we discovered, Europe would have outpriced us."

"We saw that in the LNG markets where actually many supplies which were traditionally coming into Asia were diverted to Europe and in fact, at least India was a big enough country to command some respect in the markets but there were much smaller countries who did not even get responses to their tender in Paris because the LNG suppliers were no longer interested in dealing with them,” Jaishankar added.

"They have bigger fish to fry," he quipped.

The minister also highlighted India’s recent achievements, from its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, recapitalisation of banks, efforts to boost exports, socioeconomic changes, as well as the massive adoption of digital technology.