"Military and military-technical cooperation with India is a crucial component of the entire range of bilateral relations. In recent years, it has assumed qualitatively new traits and is a true promoter of stability on the subcontinent", he said.
The official spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry said that an example of mutually beneficial cooperation between Russia and India is the carrying out of such big projects as oil-producing Sakhalin-1 (the Indian oil and gas state corporation invested in it 1.7 billion projects in 2001) and the Kudankulam nuclear power project (begun in the south of India with Russian assistance; total cost 2.6 billion dollars).
"Russia and India note the need of making joint efforts to increase the volume of trade and improve its commodity set-up by increasing the share of high-tech and science-intensive products, creating favourable conditions for the growth of investment cooperation, industrial cooperation, boosting of contacts between small- and medium-scale business", Alexander Yakovenko stressed.
