Moscow keen on establishing Indian production sites in Russia: Putin

Moscow: Moscow expressed its keenness on Indian production sites being established in Russia more actively on Thursday.

'We're interested in Indian production sites being established by our Indian partners in Russia more actively. Russia shares partners' serious attitude for long-term positive work in Russia,' said Russian President Vladimir Putin while addressing the CEO Forum along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

'We'll be doing our best for making it comfortable for them to develop their business here,' he added. President Putin also highlighted how India is a great power in carrying out a balanced and responsible foreign policy.

According to the Russian head, the launch of the Eurasian Economic Union added potential for expanding business ties between the two countries as Indian companies will be able to work on this receptive market with millions of consumers under common terms.

'I should once again point it out that we're interested in the tightest and positive cooperation of Russian and Indian business circles. We'll be further considerate to your ideas and initiatives and will back implementation of promising joint projects,' he said.

Russia's President has proposed to hold meetings of Russian and Indian leaders with representatives of the two countries' business circles on a bi-annual basis.

'If you're interested in this we could ask our today's organisers from the side of Russian and Indian business to hold similar meetings focusing particularly on cooperation in the fields of economy and business twice a year. [We could] gather one time in India and the second time in Russia,' Putin said.

According to the President, Russian and Indian entrepreneurs are not yet aware of all potential of doing business jointly, which could be solved by holding such forums two times per year.

"Russian tourists are not fully aware of India's potential and I don't think the business community is fully aware of India's potential," he said.

According to Putin, trade turnover between Russia and India is sliding now, which he said was related to external factors such as fluctuations of demand and volatility of currencies.

'The main task now is to involve all potential for diversification of Russian-Indian ties, actively promote projects in such areas as high technologies, innovations, energy, aviation and machine building, medicine, diamond industry,' Putin said.