India, Russia discuss ways to boost bilateral trade

India has asked Russia to facilitate expedited listing of domestic establishments, and registration of marine and pharma products with a view to boost two-way trade. Commerce Secretary Rajesh Agrawal, who is in Moscow, highlighted the potential for expanding and deepening trade and proposed confidence-building measures to unlock market access, an official statement said on Thursday. "The issues included expedited listing of Indian establishments and a systems-based approach with FSVPS in agriculture, especially marine products and a time-bound pathway in pharmaceuticals covering registration, regulatory reliance, and predictable timelines," it said.

FSVPS is Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Supervision of Russia. The commerce ministry also said a forward looking protocol for trade and economic cooperation across multiple sectors was finalised and signed during the meeting of Agrawal and Vladimir Ilyichev, Deputy Minister of Economic Development of Russia. Agrawal is in Moscow for the 26th Meeting of the India-Russia Working Group on Trade and Economic Cooperation. The bilateral trade stood at USD 25 billion and both sides have decided to take it to USD 100 billion by 2030. The working group noted that the potential cooperation for expansion of trade across engineering goods, chemicals and plastics, electronics, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, leather, and textiles. It also mapped Indian product strengths in engineering goods, smartphones, motor vehicles, gems and jewellery, organic chemicals, textiles, and leather sector that can support Russia's trade de-risking and diversification.

In the services sector, the Indian side encouraged greater procurement of Indian IT-BPM, healthcare, education, and creative services by Russian entities, alongside predictable mobility for Indian professionals to meet labour shortages in the Russian market. India's Global Capability Centre (GCC) ecosystem, with over 1,700 centres employing nearly 1.9 million professionals, was presented as a ready platform for Russian companies to strengthen business continuity, cybersecurity, design and analytics, and shared services, enhancing resilience in both goods and services supply chains. The Indian side took note of the Russian interest in concluding a bilateral investment treaty, the ministry said. "Both sides agreed to explore payments solutions to meet the needs for businesses, especially medium, small and micro enterprises," it said.