Indo-Russian Trade Set to Touch $7b by FY11.

Trade experts see im mense bilateral trade oppor tunities between India and Russia ahead of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev's official visit to India between December 20 and 22.

"With higher purchasing power and extreme climatic conditions, Russia can be a big market for niche products like leather garments and footwear from India. There is tremendous potential of exports of pharmaceuticals also as currently Russia imports a huge part of its domestic demand from European countries," Ajay Sahai, director general of Federation of Indian Exporters Organisation said.

According to Sahai, issue of phytosanitary standards for agricultural commodities and cereals would also be addressed during the Russian president's visit to India.

In 2009-10 bilateral merchandise trade between India and Russia stood at $4.5 billion and industry estimates suggest that this could go up by a maximum of 50 per cent to $7 billion this year. Of this, exports from India stood at $980.69 million while India's import from Russia was $3.5 billion.

Raseeque Ahmed, trade expert of Ficci, however, points out that the two countries would have to concentrate on opening up of banking and financial institutions to smoother bilateral trade.

"Russia is growing at a much faster pace than either US and Europe and this makes it a potential market for Indian exports. However, we need a trade mission to help Indian exporters with banking processes there," he said. Apart from this, bilateral innovative cooperation in hi-tech areas would also be high on the agenda of Medvedev's India visit. Last month, Medvedev had expressed Russia's readiness for innovative partnership with New Delhi and Beijing for "modernisation" of the Russian economy.

"We see the possibility of innovative partnership with nations like China, India in the five priority areas of Russia's modernisation," Medvedev said during his annual state of the nation address before the federal assembly.

Source : mydigitalfc.com