Economic Ties between India and Tatarstan Skyrocket

The cooperation between India and Tatarstan has been expanding rapidly since the agreement on trade, economic, scientific, technological and cultural cooperation between the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and Tatarstan was signed in November 2003. The pact was in line with the efforts being made by India and Russia in promoting regional level cooperation between the two countries.

In April 2010, Andhra Pradesh and Tatarstan signed a Memorandum of Understanding for promotion of joint ventures (JV) in diverse areas, including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, gas-based industries, power plant equipment, bio-technology and IT. During his last visit to Tatarstan in May 2014, India’s ambassador to Russia P.S. Raghavan identified pharmaceuticals, information technologies, transport especially automobile, petro-chemicals and tourism as the sectors with considerable potential for enhancing bilateral cooperation. Currently, India’s imports from Tatarstan include synthetic rubber, trucks, helicopters, and instrument-making products. The Tatarstan import consists mainly of medical products, food, raw materials and equipment for the food-processing industry. According to INFOLine information agency, in 2013 India was among the top five trading partners for exports of the Republic of Tatarstan.

According to the results of 2013 bilateral trade turnover between the India and Tatarstan amounted to $885.6 million (an increase of 2.3 times relative to similar period of 2012), including exports exceeded $867.1 million (an increase of 2.3 times relative to similar period of 2012), imports of $18.5 million (an increase of 8.2% relative to 2012). The share of export and import operations in the structure of foreign trade turnover between the Republic of Tatarstan and the Republic of India was 97.9% and 2.1%, respectively.