Russia-India trade target of $100 billion more than realistic – foreign minister

Bilateral trade between India and Russia currently stands at $66 billion and the goal of reaching $100 billion by 2030 is more than realistic, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Monday. He made the comments at an Indo-Russian business forum in the Indian financial capital, Mumbai. 

The two countries have expanded their traditional strong ties multi-fold since 2022, with Moscow emerging as New Delhi’s primary supplier of energy resources. Imports of crude oil from Russia currently constitute nearly 40% of India’s total oil purchases, up from less than 1% before the escalation of the Ukraine crisis in February 2022. 

“Russia has consciously focused more deeply on Asia since 2022. This has created many more avenues of cooperation that we have a long history of strong convergence and deep friendship allow us to make the best of both factors,” Jaishankar said. He was speaking at the forum alongside Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, who is in New Delhi for a meeting of the intergovernmental Russian-Indian commission on trade, economic, scientific, technical and cultural cooperation that will be held in the Indian capital on Tuesday.   

Jaishankar pointed out the complimentary natures of the two economies. “A partnership between India, which has 8% growth rate for multiple decades ahead, and Russia, which is natural key resource provider as well as major technologies leader, will serve both of them and the world well,” the minister said. 

According to Manturov, while the governments of the two countries continue to develop strategic solutions for expanding their partnership, business circles are also “looking in the same direction.”

“Despite challenging external conditions, they demonstrate a strong commitment to pragmatism and readiness for cooperation. An objective indicator of this is the record volumes of trade turnover that we achieved last year. There are all the prerequisites to surpass this achievement in the current year,” he said.  

Both Jaishankar and Manturov emphasized the need to diversify the structure of bilateral trade, which lacks balance at the moment. Last year, India’s exports to Russia stood at less than $5 billion, according to Indian government data. 

“We need not only to balance commodity flows but also to increase the share of non-resource, high-tech products. Conditions for this are being created by two similarly-minded national programs: Russia’s course towards technological sovereignty and the Make in India program,” Manturov stated.  

Jaishankar agreed that Russia’s “growing appreciation” of the Indian government’s ‘Make in India’ initiative, which is aimed at boosting the domestic manufacturing sector and reducing reliance on imports, will “take the cooperation further.” Russian companies have been actively investing in setting up joint ventures in India in energy, defense, railway, steel and other sectors.  

The Indian foreign minister pointed out that talks on the free trade agreement between India and the Eurasian Economic Union – comprising Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia – initiated this year as well as talks between various regulatory bodies and customs authorities have already had a positive impact on the further expansion of economic cooperation between New Delhi and Moscow.