Russia's Deputy Prime Minister arrives in India for trade talks

Russia's deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov, who is also the country's Minister of Industry and Trade on Monday arrived in the national capital to co-chair the Intergovernmental Russian-Indian Commission, which is aimed at enhancing trade ties between the two countries.

Taking to Twitter, the Russian Embassy in India posted, "Denis Manturov arrived in the Republic of India on a working trip. On April 17, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation - Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov arrived on a two-day working visit to the Republic of India, New Delhi." On the first day of his visit, Manturov will co-chair the 24th India-Russia Inter-governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC)

The IRIGC-TEC is the main institutional mechanism supervising economic cooperation. It integrates six working groups on economic and trade cooperation, modernisation and industrial cooperation, energy, tourism and culture, science and technology, and IT.

A plenary meeting of the intergovernmental commission (IGC) will be held on Tuesday, following which the co-chairs will sign the final protocol of the 24th IGC meeting.

Both sides plan to discuss the issues of bilateral trade, and economic and humanitarian cooperation. Manturov will also hold a number of bilateral meetings, the Russian Embassy in India said in a tweet.

A number of institutionalized mechanisms have been set up for the development of economic cooperation between the two countries. The primary institution at the government level is IRIGC-TEC.

Last month, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Manturov co-chaired the virtual meeting of IRIGC-TEC.

Jaishankar and Manturov reviewed the progress achieved in the various Working Groups and Sub-Group Meetings under the IRIGC-TEC framework since their meeting in Moscow in November 2022 and gave guidance to prepare the ground for the next in-person meeting of IRIGC-TEC which will be held in New Delhi at mutually convenient dates.

The Inter-governmental Commission is a mechanism for regularly monitoring bilateral progress across the sectors of trade and economic cooperation between the two countries which was set up by an Agreement on Inter-governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technological Cooperation signed in May 1992. The first session of IRIGC was held on 13 and 14 September 13 and September 14, 1994. So far, 23 IRIGC meetings have been held.

The 23rd Session of IRIGC was held on September 14, 2018 in Moscow. The 24th IRIGC-TEC meeting will be hosted by India and today's review meeting will pave the way for the same.

As per Indian figures, bilateral trade during April 2020-March 2021 amounted USD 8.1 billion. Indian exports amounted USD 2.6 billion while imports from Russia amounted USD 5.48 billion. For the same period, as per Russian figures, bilateral trade amounted to USD 9.31 billion, with Indian exports amounting to USD 3.48 billion and imports amounting to USD 5.83 billion.