India is confident of achieving $100 billion in trade with Russia before the 2030 target date, although the two sides need to address constraints to ensure trade becomes more balanced, said Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar Tuesday.
Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar and Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov greet each other during the 25th meeting of the India-Russia Intergovernmental Commission in New Delhi on Tuesday. (DrSJaishankar-X)
The two sides have seen “observable progress” in addressing trade challenges, especially issues related to payments and logistics, but there is “still some work to be done,” Jaishankar said while co-chairing a meeting of the main body overseeing bilateral relations. trade and technical cooperation with Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov.
Jaishankar’s comments built on his remarks Monday at the India-Russia Business Forum in Mumbai on the need to address the bilateral trade imbalance. India has a trade deficit of nearly $57 billion with Russia, largely due to massive purchases of Russian crude oil since 2022. In July, the two sides set a target of increasing trade to $100 billion by 2030.
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India is confident that this trade target will be achieved well before 2030, Jaishankar said in his opening address at the Intergovernmental Committee on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technical and Cultural Cooperation (IGC-TEC) meeting, as the two economies are complementary and benefit from “trust built up over many years”.
While the growth in bilateral trade, currently estimated at $66 billion, is impressive, the two sides still have a way to go in addressing the challenges, Jaishankar said.
“Our goal is that (trade) should be more balanced and that requires addressing current restrictions and undertaking greater facilitation efforts. Making it easier to trade must be accompanied by progress in negotiations on the India-Eurasian Economic Union Free Trade Agreement,” he said.
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“There have been challenges in trade, especially in payments and logistics. Observable progress has been made in that regard, but there is still some work to be done,” he said, in an apparent reference to the problems created by Western sanctions on Russia.
Manturov noted that trading rose 9% in the first eight months of 2024, but agreed with Jaishankar on the need to diversify the trading basket. He said two-way trade has increased more than five-fold in the past five years and India is now Russia’s second largest trading partner. Besides purchasing agricultural products from India, Russia also imports industrial equipment, parts and pharmaceutical drugs, he said.
Further expanding the trade package and reducing trade imbalance will be part of the economic cooperation program until 2030, and Russia is strongly committed to signing a free trade agreement between India and the Eurasian Economic Union, as well as a bilateral agreement on services and investments, Manturov said.
Settlement of local and alternative currency trading is now approaching 90%, and it is necessary to further expand relations between Indian and Russian banks, he said. Manturov also called for expansion of direct flights between two parties, as Russia’s Aeroflot alone now operates 12 flights a week from Moscow and Ekaterinburg to New Delhi and Goa.
The Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement that Jaishankar and Manturov have directed fourteen working groups and six sub-groups under the IGC-TEC to expeditiously finalize the economic cooperation program up to 2030 and take steps to improve market access to achieve the trade objective reaches. $100 billion.
Topics discussed at the meeting included cooperation in trade, investment, hydrocarbons, nuclear energy, connectivity, agriculture, science and technology, IT, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, fertilizers and education.