FIEO, Business Russia Ink MoU To Promote Trade, Investments

Apex exporters body FIEO on Monday said it has signed an MoU with Business Russia to promote trade and investments between the two countries.

It said the two organizations will cooperate to arrange exhibitions, buyers-sellers’ meetings, workshops, seminars and encourage enterprises to work in tandem with their counterparts for joint ventures.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was inked during a visit of a 50-member delegation of the agro and food processing sector to Moscow.

The delegation is "exploring opportunities in diverse business ventures such as ready-to-eat meals, fish meal, animal feed, soyabean apart from conventional products,” said N K Kagliwal, Board Member of FIEO (Federation of Indian Export Organisations).

Kagliwal is leading the business delegation.

He added that exporters are looking to increase agro and processed food exports from about $750 million to over $3 billion in the next three years.

About the rupee-ruble trade mechanism, he said it is "moving forward, but the pace is slow".

FIEO Director General Ajay Sahai said that exporters, importers and bankers on both the sides have to do a little extra work to resolve the issues.

"A direct exchange rate between rupee and ruble will help streamline the process in a big way," Sahai said.

He added that huge trade deficit is a concern, but it is also an opportunity to push exports from India to Russia.

 "We have to diversify exports to automobiles and auto components, electronics, medical devices, solar cells, textile, food and agriculture etc," he said.