According to ET, India and Russia are scheduled to have a mega business convention next week in a bid to boost bilateral trade to $50 billion dollars in 2023, from the all-time high $31 billion in 2022 in the wake of a surge in fertilizer and energy imports by India.
The meeting titled, ‘Russia-India Business Forum: Strategic Partnership for Development and Growth’ will be held on March 29-30 as a portion of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Topics like cybersecurity, IT, technological sovereignty, transport and logistics, smart cities, healthcare, and pharmaceuticals will be the key focus areas of the forum, as stated by officials. The same officials further said that the pivot of the forum would be a plenary session covering ‘Technological Alliances in the Greater Eurasia.’
The trade benchmark for 2025 was earlier set at 30 billion dollars, but the target was achieved in 2022 due to India increasing its oil imports from Russia. It is estimated that the number will reach 50 billion in 2023.
“The Russia-India cooperation format is one of the drivers of region-wide efforts to improve the architecture of inter-state relations in the Asia-Pacific Region. The forum is designed to strengthen business ties between the Russian and Indian business communities, to support Russian businesses entering the Indian market…,’ said Anton Kobyakov, adviser to the Russian President.