Ajit Karn
Monday, the Russian Deputy PM and Minister of Industry and Trade , Denis Valentinovich Manturov, said that “we need to boost trade with India” in order to reduce Russia’s merchandise trade deficit with India.
Russian Deputy PM and Minister Manturov said that “We need to boost trade with India” and are pursuing a balance similar to that with China.” We have $200 billion in trade with China, and it’s balanced,” said Manturov regarding the trade and remittances issue between India and Russia.
India and Russia are negotiating a free trade agreement, a move that would further strengthen the bilateral economic relations that have flourished since the Ukraine conflict.
Notably, the trade boom between China and Russia has increased the use of the Chinese renminbi. In 2022, China’s total exports to Russia reached $76.12 billion, an increase of over 12 percent from the previous year.
As a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western sanctions have harmed its economy, resulting in an increase in Yuan usage.
Russia is now an uncommon example of a country adopting the renminbi as a reserve currency rather than the U.S. dollar or the euro.
In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin endorsed the expansion of the renminbi’s international use. During a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, he expressed support for “the use of the yuan in payments between Russia and countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America,” as reported by TASS.
Manturov is in India for two days to co-chair the Intergovernmental Russian-Indian Commission, which aims to strengthen trade ties between the two nations.
The IRIGC-TEC is the principal institution for monitoring economic cooperation. It consists of six working groups on economic and trade cooperation, industrial modernization and cooperation, energy, tourism and culture, science, technology, and information technology.
The intergovernmental commission (IGC) will hold a plenary meeting on Tuesday, after which the co-chairs will ratify the final protocol for the 24th IGC meeting.
The parties intend to discuss bilateral commercial, economic, and humanitarian cooperation. Manturov will also participate in a number of bilateral meetings, according to a tweet from the Russian Embassy in India.
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Several institutionalized mechanisms for the development of economic cooperation between the two countries have been established. IRIGC-TEC is the primary institution at the government level.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Manturov co-chaired the IRIGC-TEC virtual meeting last month.
