India exports aluminium to Russia, RIA Novosti reports

India exported aluminium to Russia for the first time in April, as reported by RIA Novosti, a Russian state-owned domestic news agency. This marked a significant development in international trade.

This landmark transaction took place, with India exporting tonnes of unprocessed aluminium to Russian companies, as reported by RIA Novosti.

This marks the first recorded supply of aluminium from India to Russia since at least the beginning of 2009, as no earlier data is available in the public domain. The move is particularly notable given Russia's status as the world's second-largest exporter of aluminium, with exports valued at $6.5 billion in 2023.

In an interview with RIA Novosti, independent industry expert Leonid Khazanov suggested that the substantial supply of aluminium from India to Russia could be linked to challenges in procuring it domestically from one or more consumers.

Leonid Khazanov explained, “The fact is that all domestic enterprises that use raw winged metal to produce any types of products from it are ‘sandwiched’ between the only Russian producer of primary aluminium, Rusal, and a relatively narrow circle of factories that smelt secondary aluminium. Purchasing aluminium abroad - mainly in Asian countries - allows them to reduce their dependence on the sales policy of Russian manufacturers, even despite the long logistics shoulder."