Russian deputy PM Yury Trutnev to visit India on March 31

Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Yury Trutnev is expected to fly to India at the end of this month to follow up on discussions regarding the host country’s participation in developing the resource-rich Far East and Arctic regions.

“The discussions during Trutnev’s visit will centre around the development of Russia’s Far East region,” a source told Hindustan Times, adding that Trutnev and the Russian president’s special envoy for the Far Eastern federal district, is expected to be in New Delhi on March 31.

The development will follow visits by some other Russian officials which aims to focus on boosting trade and investment between the two sides.

A meeting of the India-Russia intergovernmental commission for trade, economic, scientific and cultural cooperation, chaired by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov is expected to take place next month.

According to sources who did not want to be named, Russia has opted to focus on new areas that can drive trade and investment cooperation with India as military-technical ties continue to be robust as it believes that India’s participation in developing the Far East and the Northern Sea Route is key to these plans.

The Indo-Russian intergovernmental commission is the core committee for bilateral economic cooperation, and it has several working groups and sub-groups focused on issues such as trade, priority investments, civil aviation and mining, as reported by HT.

Bilateral trade has stagnated at around $10 billion for the past few years.