29 May 2014
India, Russia to create favorable conditions for mutual investments –Indian ambassador to Russia
India and Russia are working on lying an oil pipeline from Russia to India which will boost bilateral economic cooperation, Indian ambassador to Moscow P.S. Raghavan has said in an interview with correspondent of the Russia Today International Information Agency Natalya Benyukh.
Correspondent: Your Excellency, Mr. Ambassador, India’s general election ended a few weeks ago. Narendra Modi has been sworn in as new Prime Minister and a new Cabinet has been formed. In view of this, what is your opinion about the future developments of Indo-Russian relations?
Ambassador: India has completed very major exercise of national general elections in the entire country, and what is the most striking about this election is that it has delivered a very decisive mandate. One party has got an absolute majority in parliament, and its coalition which was formed before the elections has reached a figure in the National Parliament which is quite close to a two thirds majority. This mandate has been welcomed by the people of India. When you come to India-Russia relations this is one relationship that has never been an issue in any election campaign in India that has never ever suffered by virtue of change of the government in India. We expect that our relationship not only will not be changed in tone and content but it will be further strengthened. There are objective reasons for that. This new government is talking about further strengthening of the economic base of society, about the economic reforms, promotion of investment, technological progress. And these are precise areas where Indian-Russian relations have further prospects for progressing. Our relations have been excellent in the political sphere in the strategic sphere, in defense, in energy sphere. But where they need to be given a real further boost is in economic and investment relations. And the course that the present government is setting out to trace will give a real boost to these aspects of India-Russia relations.
Correspondent :What steps should be taken to really promote Indian-Russian trade and economic ties?
Ambassador: If you look at India-Russia trade it’s in the region of 10 billion dollars. And that for the size of our economy for the complementarity of our economies is grossly insufficient. What we require to do is to increase the awareness in business and industry of each of our countries about the possibilities of the other. We need to understand for example that for many years Russia has transferred technology to India. Today we should recognize that India has technology to transfer to Russia. Many larger companies of course know it. The multinational Russian companies that have been to India are “Systema”, “Rusal”, “Severstal” and others. I think “Systema” is on the way of overcoming the difficulties it had. Some of the issues have been resolved already. We hope in the near future we will be able to take forward and see how we can resolve them. The idea is to create conditions for promotion of investment and create awareness of the opportunities in both directions.
The other initiative is to look at regions, republics outside the Moscow region. I had a very good visit to Tatarstan. We in India have good knowledge of products of “Kazan Helicopters” company, and “Kamas” automobile plant, which has investments in India. But there are more opportunities for Indian business in Tatarstan. They have IT Park and IT City is under construction. The president of Tatarstan is planning to lead an official and business delegation to India this autumn.
Similar wide opportunities give the Leningrad region. I have planned a number of visits to other Russian regions such as Kursk and Vladivostok, as well as to the regions in Siberia. The idea is to take India to these places and to encourage Russian business to go to India.
Correspondent: Your Excellency, Mr. Ambassador, you took part in the 18th Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum recently. An Indian business delegation also attended the forum.
Ambassador: This kind of a Forum is an excellent opportunity for networking, for creating links. There was an agreement signed by our Oil & Natural Gas Commission and Rosneft on cooperation in exploitation of resources in the Arctic Region. A delegation of Indian business took part in the Forum. They had excellent interaction. Among the spheres discussed was energy sector which is very important for India. Energy security is a major concern for our government. We are an energy deficit country, and Russia is our closest partner. Obviously we would like to see an expansion of energy cooperation whether it’s in oil, in gas or LNG. These are other areas where we’ll constantly be striving to further strengthen our partnership with Russia.
There is a proposal for a pipeline which will go from Russia to India. It’s in the future, but it’s something that we should be really working towards. Many countries:
Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan are among those that will be included in it. The project requires very rigorous study of political and economic risks, economic violability. But the process is already going on. Alongside with that we are working strongly on the TAPI project. And we invited Russian companies to participate in it.
Correspondent:The participants of the forum discussed the promotion of the GLONASS system in India during the forum. According to your opinion, are there real possibilities for this?
Ambassador: Commercial applications of GLONASS have tremendous prospects. We believe it can be very profitable. The issue is that private Indian companies have to invest in it. We are planning to organize a wider presentation of GLONASS to promote investment appetite for taking GLONASS for different applications. We hope that we’ll have progress for this in the coming months.
The Indian investors have interest to do business with Russian counterparts but they don’t know the possibilities. We are going to correct the lack of awareness by promoting delegations from different Russian regions to go to India and Indian business to come here. In September, we are planning to have a major Indian show in Moscow. Indian Science and technology exhibition will be held soon in several Russian cities.
It’s very important that the media in Russia and the media in India act as a forth multiplier in the relationship. Significant role in it plays the “Voice of Russia”. In fact we see the “Voice of Russia” as the Voice of India and Russia cooperation.
