Russia proposes ‘cluster investment platform’ to address trade imbalance

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, April 17

As the lopsided bilateral trade has become an issue as the balance is heavily skewed towards Moscow, Russia has proposed a new scheme of “cluster investment platform” for joint projects. It will provide soft loans for development and manufacturing of priority products, subsidies for pilot batches and preferences for insurance premiums and income tax.

“We will rely on trusted foreign partners. We will make every effort to expand our cooperation ties. To exchange competence and experience in the most promising technological areas,” Russia’s deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov while acknowledging that Indo-Russia trade needs to be balanced like the Sino-Russia trade.

The idea will be discussed at Tuesday’s meeting of India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technical and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC) which will be co-chaired by Manturov and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. The two sides will also discuss a bilateral investment protection treaty as well as more air connectivity.

The visiting Minister also met NSA Ajit Doval and Commerce Minister Piyush Goel.

Speaking on the occasion, Jaishankar said bilateral trade in 2022-23 was $ 45 billion as against the goal of achieving $ 30 billion by 2025. But there is concern about the trade imbalance which these new volumes have created. “We need to work together with our Russian friends on a very urgent basis on how to address that imbalance by addressing the impediments — market access, non-tariff barriers, payments and logistics. The willingness, the ability to really look at it from the point of view of the other party and then come up with solutions which will overcome the obstacles,” he observed.

Jaishankar identified payments, logistics and certifications as especially key areas. He also pointed out that Russia has failed to address sanitary and phytosanitary measures for nine years which impacted Indian exports of food and agricultural products. On the payments issue too, he felt more needed to be done. The scheme of trade settlement in Rupees through the Special Rupee Vostro Account system will also be discussed on Tuesday.