Business Meeting in honour of H E Mr V V Putin, President of the Russian Federation
December 4, 2004, Bangalore

Welcome Address by Dr A C Muthiah, Immediate Past President, FICCI

H E Mr Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation
H E Mr A D Zhukov, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation
Honourable Ministers Mr Reyman, Mr Maran and Chief minister Mr Dharam Singh, Our Ambassadors Excellencies Trubnikov and Sibal, my collegue Mr Munjal President of CII.

I take pleasure on behalf of Indian business in welcoming the President of the Russian Federation His Excellancy Mr Vladimir Putin.

It is under your leadership, that the major turning point occurred, in our bilateral relations. You initiated a strategic partnership that is now rising into a new trajectory.

Russian economy has successfully handled the historic transition to a market economy and is now growing at a brisk pace of over 7%, while India too posted a 8.2% rate of growth, transforming into a libelerised and globalised economy. Your visit at this historic juncture signifies an embrace of two nations which are destined to be the top 5 economies of the world in this century.

No doubt we have collaborated deeply in the areas of defence, hydrocarban and nuclear energy- Shakhlin-1 and Kudankulam are living examples in recent times. But it is time to go much beyond, into embedded software, molecular research and pharma, bio engineering, power, agro-processing, diamond processing, telecom , infrastructure and tourism. You would be happy to know that India is today adding 2 million cell phones a month- Can we not partner in the telecom services.

Unfortunately, our official trade remains at a puny level of $1.5 Billion. To take this to new heights we propose exploring a preferential and then a free trade agreement for which a joint study group could be formed with private and public partnership. Efforts like this can create the momentum to take us to a target of $10 Billion within the next 5 years.

We must now fructify a point raised in the strategic partnership document - exploring the possibilities of regional trading arrangements such as Russia, CIS and India. We should also explore the potentials of a trilateral cooperation - India, Russia, China- an idea that FICCI and CII are currently researching.

We draw your attention to the critical sector of SME's. This vital sector employs as much as 50% of the labour force in India, while it employs 10% in Russia. Could we set up a task force to share experiences and build sustainable bridges for mutual commercial returns.
Of course it is tourism between nations which bridges vital information gaps and brings people together. You have 8 million tourists traveling abroad while we have close to six million, but little traffic between each other. We must focus deeply on tourism. May I propose that the business visas be granted expeditiously on the recommendation of FICCI and CII, as with several other countries and tourist visas be made available in a more liberal regime.

I conclude by drawing from your very words, I quote " we highly value that today multi-faceted interaction of Russia and India has acquired the character of sustained strategic partnership working for the benefit of our two peoples" end quote. It is in this spirit that we must move forward.

This is the spirit in which we must move forward.

Thank you. (SPASIBA)