New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday co-chaired the 26th session of the India-Russia Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC), where he highlighted the need to address trade imbalances and deepen economic ties. Jaishankar also asserted that both countries need to “even surpass” what they set out to do.
“Over the last four years, our bilateral trade in goods has increased fivefold, from 13 billion in 2021 to 68 billion in 2024–25, and it continues to grow. However, a major trade balance has accompanied the growth. It has increased from 6.6 billion to 58.9 billion, about nine times. We need to address that urgently,” Jaishankar said in the session.
Salient features bilateral “agenda”
External Affairs Minister also laid out important salient features of the “agenda” which includes “addressing tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, removing bottlenecks in logistics, promoting connectivity through the International North-South Transport Corridor, the Northern Sea Route and the Chennai-Vladivostok Corridor, ensuring smooth payment mechanisms, timely finalization and execution of the Programme of Economic Cooperation till 2030, early conclusion of the India-Eurasian Economic Union FTA, whose terms of reference were finalized today, and regular interaction between businesses of the two countries.”
These steps, Jaishankar said, will not only help address the imbalance and grow trade between both countries but also hasten the timely achievement of our revised trade target of 100 billion dollars by 2030.
“We are meeting in “backdrop of a complex geopolitical situation”
He added that we are meeting in the “backdrop of a complex geopolitical situation”. He said that our leaders remain closely engaged to strengthen our special and privileged strategic partnership. We are further advancing this partnership, Jaishankar said.
As we meet for the IRIGC, allow me to make some suggestions on how we can improve our efficiency and rise to the occasion of deepening our economic cooperation.
‘We need to even surpass what we set out to do’
“We should continuously diversify and expand our agenda through mutual consultation. Doing more and doing differently should be our mantra,” the minister said.
“We challenge ourselves to achieve more, perhaps even surpass what we set out to do. We would like the IRIGC to become even more result-oriented, relevant, and readily available to the business communities of both sides,” Jaishankar said.
