Q1. Your Excellency, St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is marking 20 years jubilee this year. How does New Delhi assess this? How successful has been the cooperation in the framework of SPIEF in past years? What were the specific projects? What contracts the Indian side is planning to sign in the framework of SPIEF 2016?
Ans: St. Petersburg International Economic Forum has emerged as one of the most important platforms to bring together leaders, business representatives, academia, media and experts from the financial field. In the past 20 years of SPIEF, it has grown in strength and popularity and is one of the most important economic events in the world. India has been participating in SPIEF for many years now at Ministerial level. This year our Minister in charge of Petroleum & Natural Gas is leading the delegation. His choice to lead the delegation is not by chance. We are working on a few agreements related to cooperation in oil and gas sector, which are being considered for signing during the event. The Indian delegation will include representatives from Foreign Ministry, Commerce Ministry, Finance Ministry as well as prominent business leaders from oil and gas, IT, aviation and infrastructure and finance sectors. We will have an exclusive India-Russia Round Table of CEOs.
Q2. Is India planning to increase the export of buffalo meat to Russia? How do you assess the perspective of supply of grains from Russia to India?
Ans: There is immense potential for trade between India and Russia in the areas of bovine meat, agricultural and dairy products. India produces good quantity of buffalo meat and has been exporting it to Russia since 2015. Russian agencies have identified Indian dairy producers and the agreement on export of dairy products is under negotiation. Regarding agricultural products including grains and vegetables, again the potential for importing from India is huge. The International North South Transport Corridor provides an excellent route for agricultural exports, as the time taken for the goods is 40% lower than the existing international routes. India, Iran and Russia are in the process of harmonizing the customs modalities. India and Russia have agreed on a Green Corridor which would facilitate immediate clearances of goods. This agreement is to be signed shortly. We hope these measures help in increasing bilateral trade between the two countries.
Q3. Is India interested in purchasing attack helicopters from Russia? What are the equipment in question
Ans: Russia is an extremely important and old defence partner of India. We have been sourcing a lot of defence equipment and platforms from Russia. We are also progressing from a buyer-seller relationship to one of Joint development and joint production. The proposed Joint Production of Ka226T helicopters in India and discussion on the joint development of Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft are examples of this cooperation.
Q4. Has India approached Russia on possibility of purchasing S-400 system?
Ans: It would not be appropriate for me to comment on individual projects, but our discussion with Russia in the field of military-technical cooperation is broad-based and of an ongoing nature.
Q5. At what stage now is discussion of possible construction of nuclear power plants with the participation of Russia in the new areas i.e. the state of Andhra Pradesh?
Ans: Civil nuclear cooperation between India and Russia is an important area of our cooperation. We are collaborating on the construction of six nuclear plants at Kudankulam. Unit 1 has already started contributing to the electricity grid. The other units are in different stages of preparation. We are in the process of finalizing the general framework agreement for Unit 5 and 6. Over and above this, India is committed to identifying a suitable second site for the next set of Russian reactors. Work for that is actively underway and we are in contact with our Russian partners. Considerable progress has already been made.
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