On December 19, the Indian-Russian Business Forum was held, organized by the Indian Business Alliance (IBA) with the support of the Business Council for Cooperation with India (BCCI), the Department of External Economic and International Relations of Moscow, the Rosscongress Foundation with information support from RIA Novosti.

There is a popular joke in India: “If you can drive a car in India, you can drive a car anywhere.”IBA President Sammy Kotwani suggested: “If you weren’t doing business with Russia, you weren’t seriously doing business.”

Russia and India are actively increasing trade and economic cooperation “According to Indian statistics, mutual trade turnover has already reached $54.7 billion in the first 10 months of this year. Russia has become one of India’s four main trading partners,” said Russian Ambassador in India Denis Alipov.

He added that Russia holds a leading position in the supply of hydrocarbon raw materials, providing more than a third of Indian imports, and suggested that Russian businessmen draw the attention of Russian businessmen to offshore (special economic zones) in India, including Gujarat.

Foreign trade payments between Russia and India, as well as the creation of an alternative payment system, were discussed at the forum, because Russia has accumulated a surplus since the spring of 2022, this is due to the fact that Russian oil exports were redirected specifically to India. But Russian exporters are not interested in accumulating Indian rupees due to the fact that Indian rupees are almost impossible to convert.

Alexander Shokhin, President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, suggested that Indian cars have every chance to occupy a significant share of the Russian market.

Elena Yagodkina, Deputy Head of the Federal Customs Service, spoke about the Simplified Customs Corridor project. Project helps to more actively release goods by shifting the emphasis of customs control during declaration to the stage of goods release/ Currently, project participants by default are all Russian organizations with the status of an authorized economic operator (AEO of the Russian Federation), which can use customs simplifications. Project is being implemented by the Federal Customs Service of Russia and services of Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Iran, and Turkey.

Currently, there are 172 AEO companies in Russia, and more than 5,000 in India; the development of a similar project between Russia and India would potentially be useful.

Forum has become one of the key platforms for discussing the prospects for expanding business relations between Russia and India in the areas of innovation and entrepreneurship, trade, logistics, tourism, cultural relations, as well as energy, manufacturing and agriculture, so the event brought together 796 participants out of 10 on one platform foreign countries.

On the b2b-fiar.online platform, it is possible to analyze goods that are ready to be exported from different countries, for example, the following are usually exported from Russia to India (we do not take into account raw materials): fertilizers, oil, cardboard, and various types of lumber.

And imports to Russia from India are represented by: pharmaceuticals, tea, textiles, clothing.

You can check your partner on the official state portal using the number assigned to the company by the tax authorities in India (analogous to a tax identification number) or contact one of the partners listed on b2b-fair.online, who provide services for checking companies for integrity.