Russia and India need to reduce the imbalance in bilateral trade to make it more stable and predictable, the Deputy Minister of Economic Development Vladimir Ilyichev said at the recently held Russian-Indian Investment Forum.
Ilyichev pointed out that last year, the trade turnover between the two countries grew by 61 percent and reached over $56 billion.
"India moved up to the second place and reached a share of 8% in the total trade turnover of the Russian Federation," Ilyichev said.
According to Ilyichev, this year has also maintained a positive trend with trade turnover growing by more than 15 percent in the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period last year.
"At the same time, the structure of trade flows between our countries has not yet changed significantly, and the main share of Russia's exports, which make up the bulk of trade turnover, still consists of mineral, raw materials," Ilyichev said.
Ilyichev pointed out that there are still issues with settlements due to sanctions and the current settlement infrastructure does not fully support the required uninterrupted banking operations.