Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin announced their intention to enhance and diversify economic cooperation between the two countries, despite Western sanctions. Both sides agreed not to limit their collaboration to oil and defense but to significantly expand the areas of bilateral trade.
This is reported by Business • Media
Plans for Increasing Trade Volume and Diversification
Russia is interested in increasing imports of Indian goods to raise the volume of bilateral trade to 100 billion USD by 2030. At the same time, Moscow will continue to supply fuel to India without interruption. According to Vladimir Putin, last year, trade with India reached 65 billion USD – three times higher than the figures before the onset of the full-scale war in Ukraine.
“We have agreed on an economic cooperation program until 2030. This will make our trade and investments more diversified, balanced, and sustainable,” Modi noted.
Although India is gradually reducing its purchases of Russian oil, it does not plan to completely abandon it. Analysts estimate that by early next year, oil imports from Russia could fall to a four-year low of around 600,000 barrels per day, although this figure still exceeds pre-war levels. Experts do not rule out that volumes could quickly increase due to the emergence of new intermediaries and suppliers who are not subject to sanctions.
New Joint Projects and Financial Agreements
India and the Russian Federation have agreed to establish a joint venture for the production of fertilizers on Russian territory, as well as to expand cooperation in agriculture, healthcare, and shipping. Defense relations between the countries will also be reviewed: in the future, Indian enterprises plan to organize the production of components and assemblies for servicing Russian weapons and military equipment.
Additionally, the parties agreed on India’s lease of a Russian nuclear submarine for approximately 2 billion USD, which confirms the activation of military-technical cooperation.
According to the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, about 20 Indian banks have already opened special accounts in rupees to facilitate smoother financial transactions between companies from both countries.
Vladimir Putin’s visit to India on December 4 was the first since the beginning of Russia’s large-scale aggression against Ukraine.