India-Russia biz forum tomorrow to set tone for Medvedev visit

Vinay Shukla
Moscow, Dec 19 (PTI) Over 100 business leaders, including
over 30 Russian blue-chip firms' CEOs, are expected to hold
talks with their Indian counterparts in New Delhi Monday
ahead of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's visit for the
11th Indo-Russian Annual Summit on Tuesday (December 21).
Addressing the concerns expressed by both sides over the
low level of economic exchange under the two-decades-old
strategic bilateral partnership between India and Russia is
high on the agenda for the summit.
According to diplomatic sources, business leaders in both
countries have exhibited heightened interest in each others'
economies in light of success stories such as ONGC Videsh
Ltd's investment in the Sakhalin-1 and Imperial Energy
projects in Russia and Russia's Sistema entry into the Indian
mobile communications space under the MTS brand in consortium
with an Indian company, Shyam Teleservices.
The Joint Venture Agreement inked recently between
Russia's Severstal and India's National Mineral Development
Corporation (NMDC) for setting up a USD 5 billion steel plant
in Karnataka and Reliance Industries' JV agreement with
Russian petrochemicals giant SIBUR for manufacturing synthetic
rubber also demonstrate the growing interest of firms from
both sides to take up long-term projects in either country.
In his November 30 State of the Nation Address to
Parliament, Medvedev underscored that Russia's foreign policy
should not be "limited to missiles".
"We have to develop our economic diplomacy, evaluating
its results based on practical benefits it produces for
modernisation, first and foremost -- creating joint ventures
in Russia, supplying high-quality, inexpensive goods to the
Russian market," Medvedev said, underscoring Moscow's
priorities in economic partnerships with countries like India.
Medvedev sees a "great potential for expanding the
innovation aspect" in bilateral cooperation with India and was
in favour of a "modernisation partnership" in five priority
areas identified by his government, including energy
efficiency, nuclear energy and pharmaceuticals and both
ground- and space-based IT and IT-enabled services.
These are the sectors where India can contribute
know-how, as well as learn from Russia.
In this regard, the governments of both countries have
ratified the extension of the Indo-Russian Integrated
Long-Term Programme (ILTP) of Scientific and Technological
Cooperation for another 10 years in a new avatar -- the
Innovation Led Technology Programme -- which will be signed on
December 21 during Medvedev's New Delhi visit.
Officials on both sides noted that the ILTP signed in the
1980s by then-Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Soviet
President Mikhail Gorbachev is the only bilateral programme
that has survived and continued to develop even after
fragmentation of the USSR, because it was based on direct
personal contacts between scientists and labs of the two
countries. PTI VS
RET