India and Russia are working together to take their relationship to a higher level and there is scope for cooperation in agriculture and agro-processing sector, Niti Aayog Vice-Chairman Rajiv Kumar said Wednesday.
Addressing the second India-Russia Strategic Economic Dialogue, Kumar said that India is looking to expand its relationship with Russia to a qualitatively higher level with deeper economic cooperation and exchange of ideas.
"India and Russia are working together to take their relationship to a higher level. The IRSED (Dialogue) is looking at six core areas of cooperation which expands upon the work done since the first meeting in 2018," he said.
The six core areas are - development of agriculture and agro-processing sector, 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.
"A lot can be done in terms of agriculture ... India can meet a lot of agriculture needs of Russia. We are such a large agricultural country economy," the Niti Aayog vice-chairman said.
On the other side, Kumar said Russian companies can help Indian farmers in value addition of agricultural products.
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"Both ways, its a win-win situation" he noted.
Kumar also pointed out that so far India's MSMEs are not integrated with global production chains, so there is a huge opportunity for Russian companies to partner with India's MSMEs.
Speaking at the event, Deputy Minister of Economic Development of Russian Federation Timur Maksimov said the range of issues being discussed at the second dialogue provide a positive dynamic to the Indo-Russian relationship.
Noting that India and Russia have a special relationship, Maksimov said, "India is the fastest growing economy in the world and India's high growth can be used for global economic growth and India-Russia partnership."