"Counter trade" or "barter" designates a transaction in which the seller and the buyer exchange goods and/or services without involving any cash payment. Most are bilateral barters (E.g. oil against food, alumina against aluminium), while some barters can evolve more than two parties and then be referred to as "multilateral barters" (E.g. party 1 provides party 2 with oil, party 2 provides party 3 with alumina, party 3 provides party 1 with aluminium ingots). While resorting to barters (mostly in Emerging Markets) was very frequent in the period between 1970-1990, it has now become much less frequent.

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