Russia's largest business chamber opens 2nd office in India

World Trade Center Mumbai and All India Association of Industries (AIAI) organized an interactive meeting with a high-level business delegation led by Sergey Katyrin, President, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) of the Russian Federation.

"India is a strategic, reliable, old friend of Russia. We already have a representative office in Delhi and now we are here to inaugurate the 2nd representative office of CCI in India at Mumbai," said Katyrin on the occasion, as per a release from WTC.

CCI is the largest body representing 53,000 business organizations, more than 280 business unions at the federal level, and 750 unions at the regional level in Russia.

"The Chamber has signed more than 100 bilateral agreements with various countries and it has 30 representative offices across the world. As per our law, we do not set up more than one office in any country. But given the growing scale of the India-Russia business relationship, we have opened a second office in Mumbai, India," Katyrin added.

Katyrin further remarked that both the representative offices will promote bilateral trade, investment, and technology collaboration for Russian companies in India and also for Indian companies in Russia.

"The current bilateral trade is lopsided as India has a huge trade deficit with Russia. Our representative offices will facilitate India's exports to correct this trade deficit," the CCI president said.

In his remarks, Aleksei Surovtsev, Consul General, Consulate General of the Russian Federation, said, "Russia has become the 4th largest trade partner of India from 20th largest partner two years ago. Today, goods and services trade has crossed the USD 55 billion mark and this is the most opportune time to strengthen this partnership further."

Earlier in his welcome remarks, Vijay Kalantri, Chairman, MVIRDC World Trade Center Mumbai mentioned, "Russia is always a reliable friend of India and our trade continues despite international sanctions. Bilateral goods trade has crossed the USD 50 billion mark this year and I am confident that in the next three years, we can surpass USD 100 billion trade." (ANI)