Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh ended his two-day visit to
Moscow on Monday, taking home packages of agreements ranging from
jointly exploring the Moon, developing transport and military
aircraft to cracking down on drug trafficking and building nuclear
energy reactors.
The mood seems good and the targets vivid. But there's still
something Moscow and New Delhi differ with, which could hinder
their pushy strive.
Economic, trade ties improved
Russia and India have set the target of boosting two-way trade
volume to US$10 billion in 2010.
"We believe that it is not the limit and volumes could be much
bigger," Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov told Singh in a
Monday meeting.
In fact, Russian-Indian trade has topped US$2.1 billion in the
first half of this year, up 38 percent compared with the same
period of 2006, when the annual figure was US$3.9 billion.
Arrays of big joint projects have been carried out, such as
building a nuclear reactor in India, exploring gas field in
Russia's far east Sakhalin and in the Bay of Bengal, utilizing
Russia's GLONASS satellite navigation system and developing
multi-purpose transport plane and a new generation of military
aircraft.
However, analysts believe cooperation between small and
medium-sized companies and in the private sectors has lagged off,
which, along with Russia' complex visa procedure, could dampen the
further development of two-way trade and investment, as well as
tourism.
Military cooperation enhanced
India has played as Russia's key partner, not only in arms
trade, but also in military technology.
Russia's arms exports to India has accounted for some 30 percent
in the total volume. The trade list stretches from Su-30 fighters,
T-90 tanks to Mi-17 helicopters and frigates. Russia will also help
India to upgrade an aircraft carrier.
"We paid special attention to cooperation in the nuclear field
and military-technological cooperation," President Vladimir Putin
said after his talks with Singh in the Kremlin.
"The agreement signed earlier today on joint work to create a
multi-purpose cargo plane, just as the one concluded earlier on
cooperation in producing a multifunctional fifth generation
fighter-plane open up new prospects for military-technological and
industrial cooperation in some very sensitive spheres," he
said.
Meanwhile, as efforts to diversify arms imports and avoid
over-dependence on Russian technology, India has in recent years
speed up buying of weapons from other countries such as the United
States, Israel and South Africa.
Such attempts, as well as India's closer ties with the United
States and India’s stance on the US anti-missile plans in central
Europe, have annoyed Kremlin and will shadow future cooperation,
analysts said.
International stance coordination
Russia-India relations are characterized with identical or close
positions on topical international problems, particularly
Afghanistan, Iraq, the Iranian nuclear program and the Middle East
situation, said a Kremlin source, commenting on Singh's visit.
During the visit, the two leaders reiterated the role of the
United Nations and the must of adhering to international laws in
settling crisis. They also pledged to jointly strike against
terrorism, crime and drug trafficking.
Russia and India will also further cooperate in multilateral
frameworks such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the two
leaders said.
"We see big prospects for stepping up relations within the
tripartite format - Russia, India and China, as well as within the
quadripartite format - Russia, India, China and Brazil." Putin
said, noting trilateral cooperation between Russia, India and China
are promising.
Singh, however, said nothing about Washington's plans to deploy
anti-missile components in central Europe which has aroused fierce
opposition from Moscow. Such a silence, observer said, will
intensify Russia's worry that New Delhi may go farther with
Washington.
(Xinhua News Agency November 13, 2007)
