India, Russia plan task force to boost bilateral trade

Mumbai: India and Russia will set up a joint task force (JTF) to boost bilateral trade to a level of $10 billion by 2010 from the present $2 billion, commerce secretary G K Pillai told a meeting of joint study group (JSG) on economic cooperation.

The JTF would be set up by the end of this year when prime minister Manmohan Singh visits Moscow for summit talks with President Vladimir Putin, Pillai said.

The JSG was set up to identify the bottlenecks in tapping the potential of bilateral economic cooperation and trade.

The proposed task force would monitor implementations of recommendations, covering goods, services and investments, as given in a 150-page-report prepared by the JSG, Pillai said.

JTF would be a time-bound mechanism with the final goal of signing comprehensive economic cooperation agreement (CECA) and free trade agreement (FTA) with Russia, once it joins WTO, Pillai siad.

From the Indian side, JTF would be headed by the commerce secretary, Pillai said, adding that the Russia would be represented by a team led by Mikhail Dmitriyev, Centre of Strategic Research (CSR), which is a Kremlin think-tank linked to the Russian economy and trade ministry.