NEW DELHI, Feb 20: India and Russia discussed two-way business and economic linkages in their special and privileged strategic partnership during Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla’s visit to Moscow this week.
Shringla, in a video statement uploaded by the Indian embassy, said he interacted with top Russian officials including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Deputy Prime Ministers Rybkov and Igor.
The discussions during the February 17-18 trip enabled the two sides to “connect” on a range of issues of bilateral, regional and global interest.
The foreign secretary referred to the growing investment from both sides and said Indian companies are looking to invest in sectors like LNG and coking coal.
Russian companies are interested in inland waterways, railways and specialised steel. Also, the two countries want to focus on high technology. “There are a lot of areas, especially high technology areas where we want to focus,” Shringla said.
“One of the decisions we took in our meetings was to have a high-level group that will focus on high technology and areas that represent new technologies for both countries.”
The two countries are also looking to operationalise the Chennai-Vladivostok corridor.
Shringla said that the two sides have worked closely on vaccine, and in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are looking to collaborate with Russia to manufacture a large amount of Sputnik V vaccine — another area of our very successful cooperation is the health sector,” he said.
The countries discussed Afghanistan and other regional development with during his two-day visit to Moscow.
“We also spoke about issues like Afghanistan, which both countries have a direct interest in,” Shringla said.
Shringla said they discussed cooperation in the United Nations Security Council, where India is a non-permanent member now, and BRICS.
India has assumed the BRICS Chairship in 2021, at a time when BRICS is celebrating its 15th anniversary. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar unveiled the BRICs website on Friday in New Delhi.
The foreign secretary also spoke about the annual summit that was deferred last year due to the pandemic.
President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to visit India at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and that the visit would would take place sometime on a date to be decided. Ahead of that Foreign Minister Lavrov will visit India.
“There are a number of other visits that we spoke about — there is a visit of the Deputy Prime Minister for the Inter-Governmental Commission with our Minister for External Affairs.
“We are looking at the visits of our army and naval chiefs. There are a large number of exchanges that are on the cards for the India-Russia relationship,” Shringla said. underlined. (UNI)
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