The Indian prime minister is in Russia on a two-day visit to hold annual summit talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin exchanging official gifts during their meeting in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia on Wednesday.
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The two sides are expected to review progress in their strategic partnership and discuss ways of enhancing cooperation in all spheres, including civil nuclear energy, defence, energy, culture and people-to-people contacts.
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Hailing ties with “robust, reliable friend” Russia, Modi praised Putin’s leadership, saying he had “elevated the country to a qualitatively new level” despite Moscow’s confrontation with West.
He also voiced his appreciation for the strong India-Russia partnership in defence, diplomacy and development.
Putin blamed the decline on a drop in global oil prices, Russia’s main export commodity, and said the two countries should develop closer industrial cooperation. Describing Modi’s visit to Moscow as “very timely”, the president stressed that Kremlin was ready to expand co-operation with New Delhi in a number of key areas, including defence, nuclear energy, hydrocarbons and trade. “Following our last Summit, India has created a special notified zone to facilitate direct trade between the world’s largest uncut diamond exporter, Russia, and India, which processes 90 per cent of the world’s uncut diamond”, he said.
Putin presented the items to Narendra Modi while hosting the latter for a private dinner on December 23, 2015 evening. The two countries have set an ambitious goal of increasing trade to $30 billion by 2025.
The efforts, he added, should be to remove hurdles to ensure better flow of investments from Indian companies in Russian Federation.
However, relations between the two countries were rumoured to have been strained recently, as Russian Federation entered into a defence deal with Pakistan and India eyed French Rafale fighters and American Apache attack helicopters over Moscow’s defence products.
He said India’s GDP has clocked an impressive 7.4 per cent growth and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other international agencies have projected this growth momentum to continue.
The joint statement issued by the MEA said a programme of action has been agreed upon by the Department of Atomic Energy of India and Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation “Rosatom” for localisation of manufacturing in India for Russian-designed nuclear reactor units. “Today I will commence my visit to Russian Federation, my first bilateral visit after we formed the Government”.
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Putin conveyed Russia’s “strong support” to India’s bid for permanent membership in the UN Security Council. Modi also expressed condolence over the death of Russian citizens in a plane crash in Egypt in October.
