New Delhi: India and Russia on Friday directed their officials to speed up negotiations for a mutually beneficial agreement on the promotion and protection of investments.
The matter came up for discussion at the summit-level meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin here.
The two leaders also underlined the current and potential cooperation in the energy sector.
The leaders appreciated the ongoing intensification of the joint work on a free trade agreement on goods between India and the Eurasian Economic Union, covering sectors of mutual interest, said a joint statement issued after the meeting.
“They also directed both sides to intensify efforts in negotiations on a mutually beneficial agreement on the promotion and protection of investments,” it added.
India and the Eurasian Economic Union held the first round of negotiations for the free trade pact in the national capital last week.
India and the five-nation grouping, the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), on August 20, inked the terms of reference for the agreement.
Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan are the five member countries of EAEU.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said early signing of the preferential trade agreement between India and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) will reduce barriers to facilitate the movement of goods, services and capital.
Modi and Putin, the statement said, agreed to expand bilateral trade in a balanced and sustainable manner, including by increasing India’s exports to Russia.
The nearly $70 billion goods trade is heavily skewed in favour of Russia, mainly due to crude oil imports by India. It had a trade deficit of about $59 billion last fiscal year.
The statement further said both sides emphasised addressing tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, removing bottlenecks in logistics, promoting connectivity, ensuring smooth payment mechanisms, and finding mutually acceptable solutions for issues of insurance and reinsurance for the timely achievement of the revised bilateral trade target of $100 billion by 2030.
“Russia and India have agreed to continue jointly developing systems of bilateral settlements through the use of national currencies in order to ensure the uninterrupted maintenance of bilateral trade,” the statement said.
On the energy partnership front, it said the two sides discussed and commended their wide-ranging cooperation in the energy sector as a significant pillar of the special and privileged strategic partnership.
They noted strong existing and potential cooperation between Indian and Russian companies in oil, petrochemicals, oilfield services, upstream technologies and LNG-LPG infrastructure.
Both sides agreed to deepen collaboration on efficient transport corridors, including the INSTC, Chennai–Vladivostok route and the Northern Sea Route. They also welcomed an MoU on training specialists for ships operating in polar waters.