Bilateral trade
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Bilateral trade or clearing trade is trade exclusively between two states, particularly, barter trade based on bilateral deals between governments, and without using hard currency for payment. Bilateral trade agreements often aim to keep trade deficits at minimum by keeping a clearing account where deficit would accumulate.
The Soviet Union conducted bilateral trade with two nations, India and Finland. In the last of its years, the Soviet Union started to pay the deficits with oil, a good easily exchangeable to hard currency, which militated against the principle of bilateral trade. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, this form of trade has mostly disappeared. Bilateral trade is a manifestation of bilateralism; in contrast, multilateralism and in particular multilateral trade agreements became more important.
