External Affairs Minister S M Krishna will arrive here today on a two-day visit during which he will co-chair a session of Indo-Russian Intergovernmental Commission (IRIGC) to discuss ways to further consolidate the bilateral strategic partnership.  

Krishna and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Sobyanin will chair the 15th session of IRIGC meet tomorrow which will review the progress made by the two countries in bilateral cooperation in trade, economic, cultural, scientific and technical spheres.  

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The session will also look at the status of Russia's commitment to the full implementation of the joint declaration on strengthening and enhancing economic, scientific and technological cooperation signed during the then President Putin's visit to India in 2000.  

On the eve of Krishna's visit, Indian Ambassador Prabhat Shukla said the Indo-Russian bilateral trade has registered a 15 per cent growth and the two nations are confidently moving towards achieving the target of $10 billion by 2010.  

At present the bilateral trade stands at $7 billion.

Shukla noted that many of the old bottlenecks in bilateral trade like banking and transport infrastructure have been removed.  

There are two Indian banks operating in Russia - Commercial bank of India - a joint venture of State Bank of India and Canara Bank and ICICI Bank, while state-owned Russian  VTB Bank has a subsidiary in New Delhi.  

Russia's largest retail bank Sberbank has got the license for India operations and another Gazprombank has applied for it.  

The shipping time for containers from India to Russian ports has dropped from 45-50 days in the past to 20-30 days.

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