NEW DELHI (Sputnik) — Apart from trade, another area of focus will be counter-terror cooperation between India and Russia.
"The summit is likely to focus on strengthening trade ties and exploring ways to counter-terror cooperation and projecting India as an attractive investment destination," GV Srinivas, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, said.
"There is an emphasis on enhancing trade and economic relations. Because we all know that in India-Russia relations in areas of defense, nuclear, space is already very ahead, in the area of trade and economy there are efforts made but trade is around $ 7 billion although we have achieved the investment target. But in the trade area, we need to do a lot," Srinivas added.
To enhance the nuclear energy cooperation between the two countries both Modi and Putin are likely to sign the agreement for units 5 and 6 of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant.
During the India-Russia annual summit, both leaders will review the entire gamut of bilateral relations. "We are looking ahead to the very important visit with Russia," Srinivas said.
"Russia is our very important strategic partner and, more importantly, the government must not forget that Russia helped India during our nuclear apartheid. So besides boosting ties with Russia in the field of defense and nuclear energy, we should also open some more and new areas of cooperation. In fact, diversification of cooperation between the two countries is the need of the hour. Further, Russia can be very helpful to us in countering the aggressive China and volatile Pakistan," Skand Tayal, former Indian ambassador, told Sputnik.
