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At the INNOPROM India 2026 co-chair plenary in New Delhi, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Anton Alikhanov pressed for $100 billion in bilateral trade and $50 billion in two-way investment by 2030.
Goyal said trade must rise about $40 billion from the current base of roughly $60 billion in four years, with sustained double-digit growth and a rebalancing towards non-energy Indian exports.
He cited 40 live projects under the India-Russia priority investment projects mechanism, a bilateral investment treaty being fast-tracked, and India-EAEU free trade negotiations to be concluded early.
The two ministers also visited the National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation pavilion, which held B2B meetings with Russian and BRICS delegates on manufacturing partnerships.
Link the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf to Russia and northern Europe through Iran and the Caspian Sea
Key: Trilateral agreement signed by India, Iran and Russia at St Petersburg on 12 September 2000, in force from 21 May 2002; about 7,200 km; membership later widened to include Azerbaijan, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and others.
Give Indian ports a direct sea route to the Russian Far East
Key: Memorandum of Intent signed at Vladivostok in September 2019; runs via the Bay of Bengal, Malacca Strait, South China Sea, East China Sea and Sea of Japan; declared operational in November 2024.
Open the five-member Eurasian market to Indian industry and MSMEs
Key: Terms of Reference signed at Moscow on 20 August 2025; formal negotiations launched thereafter and yet to conclude.
Build greenfield industrial smart cities with plug-and-play infrastructure along national corridors
Key: Implemented by NICDC under DPIIT; in August 2024 the Cabinet approved 12 new industrial cities under the programme.
Create integrated textile and apparel manufacturing regions
Key: Ministry of Textiles scheme with an outlay of Rs 4,445 crore up to 2027-28 for seven parks - Virudhunagar (Tamil Nadu), Warangal (Telangana), Navsari (Gujarat), Kalaburagi (Karnataka), Dhar (Madhya Pradesh), Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) and Amravati (Maharashtra).
Special purpose vehicle that develops and promotes India's industrial corridors and industrial smart cities; renamed from DMICDC in 2020, the original company having been incorporated in 2008
Customs and economic union allowing free movement of goods, services, capital and labour; created by the Treaty on the EAEU signed 29 May 2014 and in force from 1 January 2015; members are Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and the Kyrgyz Republic
Bilateral trade is dominated by Russian energy; the entire $40 billion gap is meant to be filled by non-energy Indian exports - pharmaceuticals, engineering goods, chemicals, textiles, food, marine and auto products.
National-currency settlement and financial messaging links matter more than tariff lines here, because sanctions-driven payment friction is the binding constraint on India-Russia trade.
Goyal identified aerospace, metallurgy, nuclear technology and mining as the Russian capabilities that pair with India's scale, young workforce and corridor infrastructure.
GS Paper 2 > International Relations > Bilateral Agreements Involving India
General Awareness > International Trade and Economic Groupings
General Awareness > Current Events > International
India-Russia economic ties and the INSTC recur most years in Prelims and in GS-2 answer writing
Russia's Global Industrial Technology Exhibition; its 2026 edition at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi is the first held in India.
An agreement setting the protection, treatment and dispute-settlement rights of each country's investors in the other.
Bilateral trade excluding crude oil, petroleum products, coal and fertiliser - the segment India wants to grow to rebalance the deficit with Russia.