A meeting of the First Russia-India Strategic Dialogue took place in St. Petersburg. The event was attended by the Russian Deputy Minister of Agriculture Maxim Uvaidov, Ministry’s webpage reports.
As was noted during the meeting, India is among the largest economies in the world, and agriculture is one of its key sectors. More than a half of Indian population works in the agro-industrial complex of the country, its share in GDP is about 15%.
The Indian market is one of the key priorities for increasing export of Russian agricultural products. At the same time, in the first ten months of this year, agricultural trade between the two countries decreased by 9.4% to $624.2 mio. Russian goods are facing tariff and non-tariff restrictions in the Indian market, which is the main obstacle.
Russia supplies the Indian market with grain and leguminous crops, sunflower and rapeseed oils, seeds of agricultural crops. Russia is interested in increasing the volume of exports of these goods, as well as increase the supply of animal products. In this regard, the parties will continue to interact through supervisory services. In particular, an agreement may be signed early next year with the Indian Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare to ensure phytosanitary, quality and safety requirements for grain exports, which will create room for a significant increase in Russian grain supplies to India in future.