India keen to invest in Russia’s pharma sector Anand Sharma

India has expressed keen interest in participating in Russia's Pharma 2020 programme, which aims at developing the Russian pharmaceutical industry.

Addressing a group of political and business leaders from Russia and India at the third 'India-Russia Business Dialogue', held under the aegis of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum 2012, India's minister of commerce, industry and textiles Anand Sharma also called for an expansion of trade ties between India and Russia in tune with their economic activity.
 
Highlighting the fact that the GDP of both the countries is over $3 trillion, Sharma said India and Russia today also share a ''special and privileged strategic partnership'', which permeates the entire spectrum of economic activity.

Bilateral trade between India and Russia in 2011 was in the range of $9 billion, he said, adding, ''We have set for ourselves an ambitious target of reaching $20 billion by 2015.''

For this, he said, there is a need to diversify the trade basket between the two countries which at present is dominated by commodities with large imports of iron, steel, fertiliser and oil from Russia.

''We need to expand the trade basket to have more value added products,'' he said.

India is also planning to invest $1 trillion in the infrastructure sector alone in the next five years in which Russian industry could participate Sharma said.