Second India-Russia Strategic Economic Dialogue focuses on agro-processing, trade

The second India-Russia Strategic Economic Dialogue (IRSED), which took place here on Wednesday, focused on six core areas of cooperation, including the development of the agro-Processing sector, trade and transport.

The second meeting of the IRSED was held under the chairmanship of Vice-Chairman of the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, Rajiv Kumar, and Russia's Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Timur Maksimov.

The meeting focused on development of transport infrastructure and technologies, small and medium business support, digital transformation and frontier technologies, cooperation in trade, banking, finance, and industry, and tourism and connectivity, according to the statement.

"The IRSED comes at an opportune moment as India embarks upon ensuring the fruits of development devolve to the grassroots, as every citizen of the country becomes part of the growth and development process, as evidenced by a forward-looking Union Budget. Increased investment and international cooperation is key," Kumar said.

The Dialogue included parallel roundtables which discussed areas of cooperation and concrete roadmaps for future negotiations across outlined core areas. Participants included government officials, business leaders and experts, bringing in diverse perspectives for ideation.

"Results of today's discussions will help enhance strategic economic cooperation between our countries. We must discuss and prepare specific proposals for joint action in the future and establish economic relations which reflect the potential of cooperation between the two countries", said Maksimov.

The IRSED was established following a bilateral memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the NITI Aayog and Russia's Ministry of Economic Development during the 19th edition of the Annual India-Russia Bilateral Summit, that took place on October 5, 2018, in New Delhi.

The First India-Russia Strategic Economic Dialogue was held in St. Petersburg between November 25 and November 26, 2018.