India, Russia decides to step up bilateral trade

New Delhi, Nov 17 (UNI) Ahead of the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin in January, India and Russia today decided to work towards enhancing bilateral trade and economic aspects of strategic relationship.

External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov said, during a joint press interaction, that their discussions centred around further strengthening the strategic and time-tested partnership between the two countries.

Mr Mukherjee said the excellent political relations needed to be reflected in the development of bilateral trade and the enhancement of the economic aspects of the strategic partnership between the two countries.

In this context, he asked the business comunities in both the countries to come closer through greater exchanges and business-to-business contacts. "Towards this end, business travel would need to be encouraged and facilitated." Highlighting India's increasing energy needs, Mr Mukherjee said, "We envision a substantial increase in the share of nuclear energy in India's overall energy mix to meet the demands of our economic growth. Cooperation in this field would, we feel, further strengthen the strategic nature of our relationship." Mr Lavrov said, "Russian leadership holds in high regard the strategic relationship with India." He said, the agencies concerned had been working on the important comprehensive set of documents which would cover the joint effort in trade and economy, interaction between countries, and also cover specific projects of interaction in such areas as energy, new technology and research in other areas to the benefit of both countries. "Such things as (cooperation in) peaceful atom (uses of nuclear energy) and telecommunications will also be evolved." Mr Lavrov said both Russia and India were interested in seeing to it that Central Asia retained its stability and did not become a field of interaction of extremists.

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