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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Prime Minister,
Our talks have just ended. We discussed in detail the full range of our bilateral relations and outlined our next steps to continue strengthening the privileged strategic partnership between Russia and India.
Our countries and peoples are bound by traditionally strong ties of friendship, mutual respect and sympathy. This is the solid foundation upon which we are building our fruitful bilateral dialogue and are carrying out big projects in the economy, science and technology, and in humanitarian fields.
Our talks focused especially on economic cooperation. Despite the difficulties in the global economy, our bilateral trade increased by 24 percent last year. It is good to see that high-value-added products account for a big share of our trade. Engineering products account for half of Russia’s exports to India.
Total Russian investment in India’s economy is growing, as is Indian investment in the Russian economy. A large share of joint capital is being invested in projects in areas such as civil aircraft engineering, automotive industry, petrochemicals, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, and fertiliser production.
Let me mention our biggest achievement too: in July, operations began at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant’s first unit. It is being linked up to India’s energy grid now, and indeed, I think this will happen literally in the next few hours. The second unit is in the works now, and there are plans for building more units, perhaps four more.
Russia’s big companies are well represented on the Indian market. Gazprom, Power Machines, Stroytransgaz, SIBUR, KAMAZ, AFK Sistema and other companies are all working in India today. Dozens of Indian companies are also actively doing business in Russia.
We discussed our current military technical cooperation objectives. India is one of Russia’s biggest partners in this area. Our joint projects in this sector are evidence of the high level of our technological and industrial cooperation. One of the biggest projects here is the modernisation of a heavy aircraft carrier, which will soon be ready to be delivered to India.
What distinguishes our military technical cooperation as it is developing now is the big share of research and development work we are carrying out. Russian and Indian specialists are working together on developing a fifth-generation fighter plane, a multipurpose transport plane, and missile technology.
Russia and India have always paid great attention to the common threat of terrorism and to its combat. We are doing all we can at national and international level and are joining forces to fight terrorism. We will do everything possible to prevent it and to make sure that perpetrators are punished.
In civilian cooperation fields, we are expanding our contacts in science and technology and in education. We hope that the science and technology cooperation programme that we approved today will help to further develop our ties in this area.
We remain just as keen as ever to develop our humanitarian ties too. The Indian Culture Festival is currently underway in Russia. We have decided to hold such events on a regular basis.
Of course, we also discussed current international issues. We work productively together in all of the international forums, including the UN, the G20, BRICS, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
We discussed in depth the situation in the Middle East, North Africa, and above all, in Syria. We exchanged information on our views on the situation in Afghanistan too. I want to note that our assessments are identical or very close on all of these issues.
We on the Russian side are happy with today’s talks. They were successful and I am sure that they will help us to continue developing the multifaceted cooperation between our two countries.
I want to thank the prime minister of India, Mr Singh, and all of our Indian friends and colleagues.
We have big cooperation plans and I am sure that they will be carried out. Thank you.
October 21, 2013, The Kremlin, Moscow