Barter trade between nations is not an all together new concept.

During the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in1937 China faced great financial difficulties, pressing China into asking for military and monetary assistance from the international communities. But without enough foreign currencies for repayment, the Chinese government resorted to barter trade first with U.S.S.R. and later with the U.S. and U.K., this mode of trading provided loan and assistance to China during the war.

The biggest barter deals in the world are counter trades, often done government to government. The concept of barter between countries was always there. However, recently it’s being used in a more an effective way and all across the globe.

• The United States of America regularly engages in barter within its own country and abroad for commodities such as Milk, Grains and raw materials.

• The Philippine Government is embarking on a program to carry out a barter system for its coffee products with the products of lucrative markets. This will help them promote the exports of their coffee and in turn get defense equipments from former U.S.S.R. member nations like Romania.

• In 2009 Saudi Arabia agreed with Pakistan to swap oil for food.

• Israel barters Calcium Carbonate, Talc and Dolomite and other raw materials with the USA, UK and manyEuropean Unioncountries.

• The Thai Government recently held talks with a major Chinese bus manufacturer, Jing Long, regarding a barter transaction which will see Thai fruits traded for Chinese-made locomotives, passenger buses, and armoured cars. Hence, China gets fruits for their buses.

• Malaysia is currently supplying India with palm oil (from six state-owned companies) worth $121 million in exchange for a contract awarded to the Indian Railway Construction International Company. They will lay 31.5 km. of tracks in the southern Malaysian state of Johor.

• The Democratic Republic of the Congo and the China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) have entered barter. According to this barter the Chinese company will provide Congo the desperately needed infrastructure in exchange for a slice of Congo’s precious natural resources to feed its booming industries.

• Bilateral trade between Russia and India in 2009-10 stood at $4.54 billion and the two nations aspire to step it up more than four-fold in the next five years.

• A $4 billion resort and casino in Vietnamis being built under a barter arrangement where the government will provide the land in return for eventual ownership of the assets.

• In order to avoid fluctuating foreign currency prices and the need for a stable reference pricing framework, Iran barters oil for food with Thailand.

• In the face of the embargo imposed by the US on the petroleum products of Iran, the country is actively bartering with the Philippines for bananas, mangosteen and durians and coordinates with fruit growers in various regions to meet the ongoing needs of the country.

• Indonesian state-owned military hardware producer PT Pindad barters armoured vehicles for cars with the Government of Malaysia as well as a range of other essential equipment with neighbouring China, Thailand and Australia.

• The Taiwan cabinet's Agriculture Council has approved the Indonesian-proposed scheme to supply crisis-hit, cash-strapped Indonesia with low-priced rice in exchange for oil.