India, Russia to hold business summit in Feb

India and Russia are planning to hold an unprecedented business summit in February next year to explore ways to boost bilateral trade to $10 billion in coming three years, Indian ambassador Kanwal Sibal has said here.

During the course of the summit, over 300 top business persons are expected to visit New Delhi in February 2007, shortly after President Vladimir Putin's state visit, to give a new fillip to bilateral economic interaction.

According to Sibal, India and Russia have set the target of increasing trade to $10 billion by 2010 from the current level of $3 billion.

Sibal expressed confidence that the Indo-Russian economic forum in New Delhi will help in achieving this goal.

Sibal told reporters India was interested in developing energy partnership with Russia and the Indian entities were ready for joint ventures with Russian oil and gas majors like Rosneft and Gazprom for joint processing of hydrocarbons in Russia, especially in Siberia and eastern part closer to India.

ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the foreign operations arm of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), already has 20 per cent stake in the Sakhalin-1 offshore block in Russia's Far East under the production sharing arrangement.