Trade with India up despite curbs: Russia

NEW DELHI: India's bilateral trade with Russia is growing despite sanctions imposed by the West and the "positive dynamics" of trade will continue as withdrawal of western companies opens up new opportunities for Indian businesses, as per Russian ambassador to India Denis Alipov.
He said the two countries had successfully overcome most barriers created by the Ukraine conflict and Russia is confident that its imports from India (including science-intensive ones) will gain momentum in the near future.
"The dynamics of bilateral trade speak for itself. As per India's statistics, from January to April 2022, it amounted to $6.4 billion. This is almost twice as much as for the same period last year. If we maintain these volumes throughout the year, we will have a turnover of more than $19 billion by the end of 2022," Alipov told Russia's Sputnik.
"We are expanding cooperation in communications, diamond processing, forestry, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, tourism, railroads, metallurgy, civil aviation, shipbuilding and oil refining. Our military and military-technical cooperation is being strengthened," he added.
Thanking India for its "objective assessment" of the Ukraine situation, Alipov said India does not support attempts to isolate Russia in multilateral forums and is critical of the West's wish to reduce the international agenda to the conflict in Ukraine. He said India sees the destructive role of "illegitimate restrictions" in genesis of the present global food and energy crisis.