In the same month that Russia revealed it was looking into setting up a bilateral currency deal with China, the Press Trust of India has reported that India and Russia are considering returning to a rupee-rouble trade arrangement to end dependency on the dollar and step up economic interactions.

Representatives for Russia's central bank claim they discussed the matter at the recent Indo-Russian working group session on banking and financial matters in Hyderabad.

"The central banks of the two countries have agreed to hold consultations to study the possibility of using national currencies transactions in foreign economic operations between Russia and India," they confirmed in a statement.

Until the Soviet Union collapsed, Indo-Russian trade was based on rupee-rouble transactions, a situation which saw India emerge as the former USSR's largest trade partner in the developing world.

The aim of a potential currency deal between Russia and China would also be for the two countries to bypass the dollar and the euro in favour of settling their trade with the rouble and Chinese yuan.

Both nations are said to be concerned about the global financial system's reliance on the volatile US dollar.