India, Russia decide to triple bilateral trade

India and Russia have discussed ways to boost their economic ties and triple their bilateral trade to US 30 billion in the next decade. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, chairing the 21st India-Russia Inter-Governmental Consultations on Tuesday, also looked at ways to enhance the mutual direct investment to $15 billion by 2025.

Both sides identified various sectors to achieve these commercial targets, agreed upon by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and and Russian President Vladimir Putin during their summit meeting last year. Bilateral trade in 2014 amounted to $9.51 billion, with Indian exports touching $3.17 billion and imports from Russia stood at $6.34 billion.

Agriculture, pharmaceutical and infrastructure were some of the areas identified by both sides to strengthen their economic engagement. While economic agenda was one of the focus areas in the consultations today, the other areas deliberated upon were space, energy, culture and science 

and technology.

Officials said India also reiterated its commitment to work towards having 12 Russian nuclear plants as was agreed between Modi and Putin.

Russia is an important partner for India in peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Earlier, Swaraj interacted with top Russian Indologists. The Indologists briefed her about their work including translations of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as well as teachings of Indian languages.