Pursuant to the decision taken during the 19th bilateral Annual Summit held on 5th October 2018 in New Delhi, the 1st India-Russia Strategic Economic Dialogue was held in St. Petersburg on November 26, 2018, led by Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Vice-Chairman, National Institute for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog and Mr. Maxim Oreshkin, Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation. The Strategic Economic Dialogue focused on five core areas - Transport Infrastructure, Agriculture and agro-processing sector, Small & Medium Business support, Digital Transformation & Frontier technologies and Industrial & Trade Cooperation - to identify areas where both the sides could work together to further improve their trade and economic cooperation. Discussions were held in the atmosphere of friendship and cooperation characteristic of India-Russia relations.
2. Operationalization of INSTC route on priority and early organization of its coordination council, improvement of Inland Waterways in India through Russian collaboration and setting up of special techno-parks for Russian investments, addressing market restrictions and access for both sides on agri-products, textiles, diamonds, establishing broader dialogue on national currencies, joint action by Public and Private sector in nurturing SMEs, including information exchange mechanism needed to access credit and market and for learning from best practices and mutual recognition of each others companies for quality assurances to avoid customs bottlenecks were identified as priority areas by both sides.
3. On the digital front, cooperation in Financial Technology, Artificial Intelligence(AI), blockchain system and Quantum computing were explored. Both sides also agreed to explore Joint working arrangements and pilot projects in healthcare, proposed setting up of a single-window clearance, agreed on Tourism being a valuable tool for increased people to people contact and economic cooperation, projects which can be developed for third country markets, and to invest resources jointly in projects in far eastern region of the Russian Federation.
4. Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog invited and Minister Maxim Oreshkin agreed to hold the next round of Strategic Economic dialogue in end-July/August 2019 in India.
27 November 2018
