New Delhi, Apr 20 (KNN) Inviting the Indian industry to explore investment opportunities in the Chelyabinsk Region of Russia, its Governor Boris Dubrovsky has assured full cooperation with the Indian businesses.

Dubrovsky pointed that foreign investors get tax incentives in the region.

Speaking at an interactive session organized by FICCI, he held out the assurance that the Chelyabinsk Region would cooperate with the Indian businesses and their investment will be fully protected.

Dubrovsky said that Indian investments in Russia were estimated at USD 8 billion and Russian investments in India totalled about USD 3 billion. The volume of trade needed to be scaled up, he said adding that there was a need to promote new opportunities for economic and trade cooperation and promote the International North-South Transport Corridor, which would reduce the transit time by almost 40 per cent between India and Russia. 

Governor Dubrovsky said that the industrial development of the region was determined by the metallurgical, car-building, fuel-energy, construction, agricultural-industrial complexes.

Besides, the region had rich and varied natural resources and qualified work resources. He added that the level of investment cooperation between the two countries had been extremely low and added that the Chelyabinsk Region had some ready potential investment projects which Indian industry could consider for investment.

Anatoly Kargapolov, Charge d’Affairs, Embassy of Russia in India, said that India and Russia enjoyed stable economic ties and India with its growing market offered ample business opportunities.

G. V. Srinivas, Joint Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs, said there was a need for Indian industry to explore diverse regions of Russia and forge partnerships in unconventional sectors. Besides, areas of cooperation such as energy, aviation, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, telecommunications, high technologies and ICT, India could partner with Russian in artificial intelligence, robotics and big data.  

Yaroslav Tarasyuk, Trade Commissioner, Trade Representation of Russia in India, said that there have been several business delegations from both sides visiting varied regions in India and Russia respectively. This underlines that the industry of India and Russia were eager to forge partnerships and alliances and were exploring new areas of cooperation.

19 MoUs were exchanged between the leaders of India and Russia in Goa in 2016. It was time for the industry on both sides to leverage these MOUs and develop business opportunities.