India seeks to boost engineering exports to Russia.

KOLKATA: The commerce ministry and the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) are working on a strategy to shore up engineering shipments to Russia, where economic sentiment is expected to improve with the turnaround in crude oil prices.

The Russian economy is heavily dependent on export of crude oil. Amid a drastic fall in its price, the country's import of engineering goods from India had more than halved in value from $744 million in 2014-15 to $355 million in the period April 2015 to February 2016.

As a part of the strategy, EEPC India and the India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) will spearhead a delegation to 'INNOPROM', the flagship Russian engineering and technology event being held at Ekaterinburg between July 11 and 14, 2016. India is a partner country in the event.

The international industrial fair, which will host 600 companies from 70 countries, will be organised in the Sverdlovsk region located at the strategic Euroasian border.

"With a turnaround in oil prices, the Russian economy is bound to pick up this year and India would like to take advantage of the same. We need to be pretty aggressive in pushing our best foot forward," EEPC India chairman TS Bhasin said.

Besides bilateral trade, India's efforts will be to attract Russian investment into manufacturing under the 'Make in India' programme, Bhasin said.

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com