Minister of the Moscow City Government, Head of the Department for External Economic and International Relations of Moscow (DEEIR), Chairman of the Board of the Business Council for Cooperation with India (BCCI), Sergey Cheremyn signed a memorandum with the Indian Chambers of International Business ICIB and MSME in New Delhi.

The agreement aims to develop bilateral trade between India and Russia, as well as to assist local entrepreneurs and enterprises to find and promote investment projects on the territories of two countries.

India has traditionally been one of Moscow’s key trade and economic partners. As of January 1, 2022, the volume of accumulated investments from India into Moscow’s economy amounted to USD 143.0 million. At the same time, the trade turnover between Moscow and Indian partners in 2021 increased by 43.5% compared to 2020 and amounted to USD 3,446.7 million. This was stated by the Minister of the Moscow City Government during his speech at the session denoted “Business Dialogue: Regional Cooperation as a Driver of Economic Development”.

“This year we are also tracing an intensified upward trend in the trade turnover. In the first half of 2022, an increase to USD 1,468.7 million was recorded. This is 6.3% more than compared to the same period last year. We see great potential for promoting Russian companies’ products on major trading sites in India, such as Flipkart,” – Sergey Cheremyn commented.

Integration of convenient payment and transportation systems for Russian businesses is currently underway. Sberbank and the Reserve Bank of India are developing an alternative to the SWIFT payment system for smooth bilateral trade. At the moment, payments are made under the “Ruble–Rupee” scheme.

During the session, Julia Antonova, Executive Director of the Foreign Economic Partnership Development Division of Sberbank, also discussed the options created for FEA participants in India.

“We have developed a complex product by Sberbank, which allows Russian companies to contact foreign suppliers in the product categories of their interest via online tools. Throughout 2022, five business conferences for 600 companies have been held using Sberbank service. The small number of conferences notwithstanding, we observe the increase of payments in national currencies,” – Julia Antonova commented.

Also, the session to discuss joint projects in railway transport entitled “India-Russia Rail Transport Day” has been held under the sponsorship of VEB.RF. The meeting has been held as part of the business mission of the Department for External Economic and International Relations of Moscow (DEEIR) to New Delhi and Mumbai on December 10-17. Fifteen companies from the pharmaceutical and cosmetological, industrial engineering and mining sectors are taking part in the mission.