Russia looks at India, China amid global financial turmoil

Vinay Shukla

Moscow, 29 Oct (PTI) A key strategic plan prepared by
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for Russia's foreign and
economic ties in the next decade has identified India and
China as priority partners, with most of the top western
nations headed for recession.

The government of Prime Minister Putin on Monday
adopted a strategy to develop former Communist nation's
foreign economic ties till 2020, in which the world's most
dynamically emerging India and China have been identified as
the priority partners.

According to an unnamed official, quoted by the
state-owned ITAR-TASS news agency, most of the strategic plan
adopted by the cabinet is highly confidential; few passages
for public consumption mention India and China as the priority
partners, albeit Moscow will continue to look at the currant
focal partner European Union for hi-tech, energy investments
and acquisition of European assets.

With European markets falling and the continent
slipping into a long recession, Moscow seems to be willing to
grant India, as its priority partner, wider access to its
energy assets.

The acquisition by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation
(O.N.G.C.) Videsh of London-listed Imperial Energy operating
in west Siberian region of Tomsk is expected to be speedily
cleared by the government.

Russia seems to be willing for greater mutual
investments in the energy sector and the issue is likely to be
on the top of the bilateral agenda of the annual Indo-Russian
summit in the first week of December, when President Dmitry
Medvedev is to pay his maiden visit to India.

Prime Minister Putin's parleys here Tuesday with his
Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao substantiates the significant
eastward shift in the Kremlin's plan, when after dragging its
feet for many years Russia agreed to build the spur of its
East Siberia - Pacific Ocean (E.S.P.O.) pipeline into China.
The two nations are to enter into a 20-year agreement for the
supply of 15 million crude oil annually, equivalent to the
Asian giant's 4 percent requirements.

Besides this, the two nations, who hope their
bilateral trade to cross USD 50 billion mark by the end of the
year, have also signed a plethora of agreements ranging from
cooperation in nanotechnology to building a new generation of
civilian aircraft and additional nuclear reactors.

So far the Kremlin had been hesitating in building the
E.S.P.O. offshoot to China, fearing Russia could be reduced to
the 'energy appendix' of the Communist giant. Although Putin
and Wen failed to ink the concretics of the oil deal, the
talks are expected to be completed by November 25 between
state-run Rosneft oil major and Transneft pipe lines monopoly
with the Chinese CNPC, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin was
quoted as saying by the local media.

The Deputy Prime Minister is chairman of Rosneft and
looks after the energy sector in the cabinet of Putin.