India, Russia set up Trade Ministers' Study Group

St Petersburg, July 18: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said India and Russia have set up a Joint Study Group of their Trade Ministers to examine ways to enhance bilateral trade and economic cooperation and facilitate the signing of a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement.

''Our annual trade turnover currently stands at around 2-3 billion dollars which is far below the potential of both the Indian and Russian economies. We hope to raise the level of bilateral trade to 10 billion dollars by 2010,'' Dr Singh told Interfax in an interview.

Energy is to be the key to transforming the bilateral economic relationship as Russia is one of the largest producers of energy and India is one of the largest consumers. New Delhi, which had invested about two billion dollars in Sakhalin-I, was willing to invest more if opportunities were available, he said.

''There is unlimited potential for India and Russia, as excellent political partners, to develop a strong energy partnership,'' he said.

Further, civilian nuclear power projects offered large possibilities once the necessary political issues were resolved.

Russian investments in Indian infrastructure development were welcome. ''I think current visa procedures appear to be an obstacle to developing business-to-business contacts.'' Pointing out that Russia was one of the world's leading producers of diamonds and India's strength in the area of diamond processing was well known, he said there was considerable potential for diamond exports directly from Russia to India, and for joint ventures to be set up between companies in the two countries for diamond processing and marketing.

UNI

Related Stories
Indio-Russian and China ties must be strong