India could draw valuable lessons from Moscow as the South Asian country aims to develop a network of ‘Smart Cities’ involving massive infrastructure upgrades, a Russian official has shared.
Sergey Cheryomin, the Head of Department for Foreign Economic Activity and International Relations of Moscow, Moscow City Government, said the Russian capital’s innovative solutions in developing ‘Smart City’ and ‘Safe City’ are in huge demand in India as well.
"It seems to me that the Moscow government's practice of developing technoparks, technopolises, industrial clusters, where we provide appropriate benefits, where we provide opportunities to subsidize innovative solutions that are useful not only for the city, but for the economy as a whole, such measures to create innovative industries are in great demand in India as well,” he stated.
Cheryomin, who is also the chair of Business Council for Cooperation with India, is in New Delhi to attend the Russia—India Business Forum: Strategic Partnership for Development and Growth, a two-day event that concluded on Thursday.
He said that several sessions at the India-Russia event were devoted to the issue of ‘Smart Cities’.
Cheryomin participated in one such discussion titled ‘cooperation in the name of development and growth’.
India Companies Can Fill the Niches in Russian Market
Cheryomin also reckoned that the Indian companies have been presented with a unique opportunity to fill “niches” in the Russian market after the departure of many western brands in the wake of western sanctions over Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine.
"Both the Russian Federation and Moscow represent a unique market in terms of consumer opportunities. To miss it means to give at the disposal of competitors who will immediately appear: nature abhors a vacuum,” he suggested.
He further said that bolstering economic cooperation between Moscow and New Delhi was also important from the point of view of developing what he termed as “technological sovereignty”.
Trade between India and Russia hit a record $31 billion last year, breaching the target set by Prime Minister Modi and President Vladimir Putin at the 21st Annual Summit in New Delhi in December 2021.