 "oil")
The finance ministry has exempted rupee payments made to the National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) for crude oil imports from a steep withholding tax, according to a government order reviewed by Reuters.
The exemption, put in place December 28 but backdated to November 5, will allow Indian refiners to settle about $1.5 billion of outstanding payments to NIOC. Those have been building up since Tehran was put under stringent US sanctions in early November.
The two countries on November 2 signed a bilateral agreement to settle oil trades through an Indian government-owned bank, UCO Bank, in the Indian currency, which
