India Russia Strategic Economic Dialogue held at St. Petersburg

The first-ever India Russia Strategic Economic Dialogue was held at St. Petersburg in Russia.

• Indian side was led by NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar and Russian delegation headed by Economic Development Minister Maxim Oreshkin.

Details:

• The two-day forum provided participants, a platform to discuss development of bilateral ties in trade, investment, technology and industry.
• It was aimed to bring together key business figures from both the countries.
• Transport, agriculture and agro-processing, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), digital transformation and frontier technologies and industrial cooperation were some of the key areas of focus of the forum.

About Indo-Russian Strategic Economic Dialogue:

• It was created by PM Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin in their informal summit (held at Sochi in May 2018) to give a big push to economic partnership between both countries that has started to gain momentum since 2017.
• It aims to focus on macro picture of the economic partnership and also explore partnership and joint ventures in services and IT sectors.
• It seeks to put in place mechanism for partnership between resource-rich Russian regions and Indian states.
• In an effort to boost bilateral trade to $30 billion by 2025, both countries have agreed to give high priority to removal of obstacles to trade in order to improve upon 21.5% growth in two-way trade recorded last year.
• India has already launched Strategic Economic Dialogue with China.

Question:

Q. Where was the first-ever India Russia Strategic Economic Dialogue held?
a. St. Petersburg, Russia
b. New Delhi, India
c. Moscow, Russia
d. Mumbai, India